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OUR WIDOW 





OUR WIDOW 


(THREE WAYWARD GIRLS.) 


BY 

FLORENCE WARDEN, 

Author of “ A Terrible Family ,” “ Adela's Ordeal," “ A Perfect 
Fool," “ A Sensational Case," “ The House 
on the Marsh," etc . 



THE TRADE SUPPLIED BY 

THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS COMPANY, 

LONDON. NEW YORK. LEIPSIC. 



Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

EDWARD HARRISON. 


[All Rights Reserved .] 


OUR WIDOW. 


CHAPTER I. 

“What do you think papa has done now?” 

This question, uttered in a shrill treble voice which 
grew into almost a shriek upon the last word, came 
from a whirlwind which burst into the midst of a 
group of ladies who were drinking their after-dinner 
coffee in a Bayswater drawing-room one warm evening 
in April, when the fire had been allowed to die down 
and somebody had begged for an open window. 

Everybody looked up. The whirlwind was the 
prettiest creature imaginable; a very rosebud of a 
girl, with a pink and white skin, childish blue eyes, 
a little red-lipped Cupid’s bow mouth, and hair which, 
although it had lost its earliest gold, was still fair and 
soft and silky as a little child’s. 

And her figure! Molly Frewen’s beauty did not 
depend upon her face alone. She was not above the 
middle height, but was so well shaped, so plump 
where it was best to be plump, and slender where it 
was proper to be slender, that she might be called an 
almost perfect specimen of her particular type of 
beauty. 


5 


6 


OUR WIDOW. 


And it so happened that Molly, in common with 
her sisters, had a gift which, in English girls espe- 
cially, is very much more uncommon than beauty ; she 
knew how to dress in the style most becoming to her. 
Her little white muslin frock, home-made for the 
most part, and trimmed in the simplest manner with 
big rosettes of sky-blue baby-ribbon at the elbows, 
waist, and shoulders, was exactly suited to her, while 
the bronze high-heeled shoes, with more sky-blue 
rosettes, a glimpse of which could be got as she flung 
herself into the room, showed off her pretty little 
plump feet to as much advantage as her dress did her 
figure. 

“Well, what is it?” said Bab, throwing her arms 
behind her head, leaning lazily back in her chair, while 
the book which she had been pretending to read slipped 
from her knees on to the floor. Bab was really a 
beauty too, but of quite another type. Her complex- 
ion had the waxen, almost unhealthy pallor of the 
born Londoner; her features were less regular than 
those of her elder sister ; her eyes were less blue ; her 
hair, though more abundant than Molly’s, was less 
fair. There was a charm in her face, however, 
though it was not so childlike as her sister’s; the 
vivid scarlet of her lips, almost startling against the 
dead white skin of the rest of her face, was strikingly 
attractive. But her strongest point was undoubtedly 
her figure, to which the word “willowy,” so often 
misused, was in this case strictly appropriate. 

Not very tall, Bab was so slender, without being 
thin, so naturally graceful without being languorous 
or limp, as to suggest the comparison with a lily as 


OUR WIDOW. 


7 


readily as her elder sister suggested the simile of a 
rosebud. 

And Bab, too, was even more conscious than Molly 
of the best way to show off her own charms to advan- 
tage. Instead of being dressed in white, like her 
sister, she wore black chiffon , with puffed transparent 
sleeves of the same material, and a round black satin 
waistband with floating, long ends reaching to the 
bottom of her skirts. She wore black openwork 
stockings, and black satin shoes with scarlet heels; 
and a poinsettia, with its flaming scarlet bracts, fast- 
ened with a pearl pin a little to the left on the front 
of her bodice. 

Before Molly could answer her sister, another 
voice, louder, stronger than those which had already 
spoken, burst into the conversation. 

“ It’s nothing, of course. Don’t you know Molly 
better than to suppose she has anything to tell, just 
because she makes a great noise and a great fuss 
about telling it?” 

And Tryphena, the youngest, the tallest, and 
altogether the most bouncing and conspicuous of the 
three sisters, put down her coffee-cup so sharply that 
the cup fell over into the saucer with a clatter, and 
the spoon sprang out on to the floor. 

A great, handsome, overgrown girl, with wonderful 
hair which was a rich brown in the shade and guinea 
gold in the sun, Tryphena, who had the irregular 
features of Bab, the pretty coloring of Molly, and a 
splendor of physical development which was all her 
own, looked at least five years older than her real age, 
which was seventeen, and was altogether a magnifi- 


8 


OUR WIDOW . 


cent, irresponsible, overgrown, and tremendously un- 
manageable baby. 

She wore white muslin, too, by the way ; but she 
wore it with a difference. Unlike her sisters, she was 
too lazy or too incapable to make her own clothes, 
and too impatient to have them properly fitted; so 
that the white muslin garment she wore, instead of 
looking as if it had “grown on her,” hung so loosely 
that it would have marred the appearance of a creature 
less magnificent; and the pink sash around her waist 
looked as if it had been tied on to keep the various 
parts of her dress together. 

Molly, although she was brimming, bubbling over 
with her news, determined upon this ungracious 
reception to keep it for a few seconds all to her- 
self. 

“Very well!” she exclaimed with tantalizing airy- 
ness, as she sauntered through the big front room into 
the smaller back one, touching the tips of the fingers 
of one plump hand with the tips of the other. “ I 
don’t want to tell you, if you don’t want to know. 
I can keep it to myself. Or — ” evidently as an 
afterthought, “I can tell it to Sam.” 

And she walked up to the side-table in the back 
room, where a tall, thin young man, with a clean- 
shaven face and colorless hair, was busily copying a 
piece of music. 

From the manner in which Sam looked up when 
the girl threw him these careless words, it was clear 
that no word or action of hers was unimportant to 
him. He spoke good-humoredly enough, though 
there was something rather pathetic in the note : 


OUR WIDOW. 


9 


“All right, Molly; I’ll hear your secret. One 
more use for the old hack!” 

“Oh, don’t be silly!” said Molly pettishly, giving 
him a tap on the shoulder nearest to her by no means 
so light as might have been expected from a young 
lady. “ Put that stuff down, and come here, and I’ll 
tell you. And then you can just tell them if it’s 
nothing, as they think!” 

And she pulled his sleeve so roughly that from the 
quill pen he was holding there fell a great blot of ink 
on the neat manuscript. 

“ Oh, look what you’ve done ! Now, that’s too bad ! 
It will look as if you’d done the thing yourself!” ex- 
claimed Sam with transient irritation. 

“Why, what is it? You shouldn’t be so pedanti- 
cally particular.” 

“It’s only for you,” replied Sam rather ruefully. 
“ The song you said you wanted copied. I suppose 
you’ve forgotten all about it by this time!” 

“Well, I had,” replied Molly, rather contrite. 
“ But it’s very good of you, Sam; it is — really. Only 
I’m sorry you’ve taken so much trouble. It wasn’t 
worth it, you know.” 

“It’s always worth while to try and please you — 
if I can. Only sometimes it is jolly hard.” 

“ You should give it up then,” retorted Molly, with 
the brutal good sense and the uncompromising frank- 
ness of nineteen. 

“I’ve a good mind to!” said Sam with a frown. 
“And then you’d see whether you’d get on so well 
with no one to bully and worry the life out of.” 

“Oh, I should find somebody else,” said Molly 


10 


OUR WIDOW. 


simply. “ I’m one of those people who must bully, 
you see. It’s a natural deficiency of amiability. 
And the reason why you and I got on so well as we 
have done is that you have a natural excess of the 
virtue. And now you are free to bestow it on some 
one else.” 

And she waved her hand majestically over his 
head, with this lofty intimation that his allegiance 
was wasted. 

Sam, who had gone back to his music-copying, and 
who was busily endeavoring to make the best of the 
blot, threw her an anxious glance. 

But before he could humble himself, by uttering 
the protest which was upon his lips, Bab’s voice came 
to them from the front room. 

“ When you two have finished your usual daily 
scrapping match, perhaps, Molly, you will condescend 
to tell us the wonderful secret. And let’s hope it 
will be something to break up the general dulness of 
things in these parts!” 

Molly, who was dying to tell, came quickly for- 
ward. Even the scoffing Tryphena tried in vain to 
hide her interest. Molly made a curtsey. 

“ Papa has answered an advertisement, ” said she. 
And then she stopped. 

“ An advertisement of what? A pet dog? A flat 
in Paris? A second-hand sewing-machine?” 

Molly shook her head. She was conscious that the 
curiosity she had wished to excite was at fever- 
pitch. 

“ Was that what he sent for you to the study for?” 
asked Tryphena. 


OUR WIDOW. 


11 


“Yes. He said that, as his eldest daughter, I 
ought to know. ” 

“It’s something serious when papa talks like that 
about ‘eldest daughters' ! " exclaimed Tryphena with 
round eyes. 

And the fifth occupant of the room began for the 
first time to show interest, and some uneasiness. 

This was Miss Koscoe, the companion-governess, 
from whom the three sisters no longer learnt anything, 
if they ever had done so, but who was supposed to act 
as their protectress, guardian, monitress, and chape- 
ron. 

Miss Koscoe was either an old-looking woman in the 
twenties, or a young-looking woman in the thirties; 
she was a serious-faced person with plump cheeks, 
large features, light eyes, and heavy gait. She wore 
black silk in the evening, and in whatever way she 
dressed her hair, it was always on one side. 

She went on with her crewel work, which she 
always did after dinner and at no other time, but she 
listened attentively for Molly's next words. 

“He answered an advertisement of — a widow!" 
burst out Molly at last. 

The announcement was followed by a chorus of 
shrieks and exclamations, in which Miss Koscoe 's 
plaintive “Oh, dear!" was lost. 

Molly whipped out from her pocket a scrap torn 
from a newspaper, and with much deliberation read 
these lines : 

“Widow would be Paying Guest in family of 
position, living in good style, but (for the moment) 
moderate terms: close to Piccadilly, Hyde Park, or 


12 


OUR WIDOW . 


Knightsbridge. Letters to Madame, Willing’s Ad- 
vertisement Offices, Piccadilly.” 

The reading of this was followed by a short silence, 
during which Sam Eitchie left his music-copying, and, 
looking over Molly’s shoulder, satisfied himself that, 
so far, she was playing no trick upon them. The 
printed words were certainly there. 

“He was teasing you, I expect,” said he, when he 
had read the advertisement two or three times. 

“ Go and ask him yourself if he was, ” retorted Molly 
with exasperation. “As if I didn’t know when papa 
was joking. And as if he ever did make jokes at all !” 

“He doesn’t often, certainly. But — but we must 
hope that he has got as far as an effort at humor 
this time, to — to frighten you, to — to give you warn- 
ing!” added Sam significantly. 

“ To give us what ?” asked Bab haughtily. 

“ To put you on your guard. To show you what 
may happen if you don’t take care.” 

“If we don’t take care of what? Pray explain 
yourself, Samuel.” 

Sam, whom any mention of the whole of his Chris- 
tian name sufficed to enrage, turned fiercely and spoke 
deliberately : 

“ I mean that Mr. Frewen, your father, is getting 
frightened at the way you girls carry on ” 

“ Carry on! Pray what is that in English?” 

“Flirt; go about to all sorts of places with all sorts 
of people ; let it be seen that you don’t care for any- 
body; do everything that you ought not to do, in 
fact,” retorted Sam, who thought it a good opportu- 
nity to instil a much-needed moral lesson. 


OUR WIDOW ; 


13 


Before the girls had collected breath to fell him to 
the earth Miss Roscoe’s wailing voice broke in from 
the background : 

“It's what Fm always telling you; only you won’t 
listen to me. I knew it would come to your father’s 
ears some day, and that he would put a stop to every- 
thing. And now you see what it has come to!” 

“But we don’t. That’s the worst of it,” said 
Molly, who, having been the recipient of her father’s 
confidence, knew better than any of them that he was 
in earnest over what she did not dare to tell him was 
a mad idea. “We don’t know what this widow will 
be like ” 

“Or whether she’s a widow at all. They seldom 
are!” put in Bab, with an air of worldly wisdom. 

“But we soon shall know,” pursued Molly. “For 
he’s given her an appointment to call here to-night; 
and he’s expecting her every minute.” 

The words were hardly out of her mouth when 
Tryphena rushed to the nearest window and took 
up her stand there. She had not to wait long. 
While the others were still disputing as to the exact 
position the “paying guest” would occupy in the 
household, and were concocting various plans for 
“ making it hot” for her if she interfered with them, a 
suppressed shriek from the window brought them in 
a body to join Tryphena. 

“Don’t — don’t peep behind the blind!” implored 
Miss Roscoe ineffectually. 

“She can’t see us,” said Tryphena. “She’s in a 
hansom.” 

“A hansom! Oh, that will be quite enough for 


14 


OUR WIDOW. 


papa. There’s nothing to be feared from Ur!” 
scoffed Bab. 

And a full view, or as full a view as they could get 
from behind the blind, of the lady as she got out of 
the hansom and disappeared in the portico, reassured 
them still more. 

“ Not snuffy enough to please papa!” was Molly’s 
verdict. 

And everybody agreeing with her, the ladies one 
and all heaved a long sigh of relief, while the hard- 
hearted Sam stoutly affirmed that it was a pity. 


CHAPTER II. 


The general impression in the drawing-room was 
that Mr. Frewen, whose horror of anything at all 
“loud,” or even “smart,” in women was proverbial, 
would get rid of the visitor he had brought down 
upon himself in as short a time as possible. The 
girls knew how effectually he could use that old, old 
plea of “ important business” to cut short an interview 
which bored him, and expected to see the lady emerge 
from the portico within a very few minutes of her 
arrival. 

The minutes dragged on, however, and still the 
hansom waited. At last Tryphena, heedless of Miss 
Roscoe’s entreaties to consider whether it was lady- 
like, went out and sat upon the stairs to keep watch. 
And here she waited until a casual visitor of the male 
sex arrived, and after treading upon her in the dusk 
which she had herself produced by turning out the 
gas in order that her father might not see her, kindly 
consented to share her watch with her. 

For a whole hour the hansom had waited, and sur- 
prise was growing into consternation when the draw- 
ing-room door was suddenly burst open, and Tryphena 
dashed in, followed headlong by Bradley Ingledew, 
a handsome young stockbroker whose frequent visits 
were put down to the account of Bab, although, to do 
15 


16 


OUR WIDOW. 


him justice, his heart was large enough for him to be 
able to enjoy the society of any one of the three. 

“Papa’s coming upstairs!” cried she in a dramatic 
whisper which could be heard throughout the house. 

“ And he’s got her with him!” 

Indeed, the occupants of the room had hardly time 
to get under control the facial muscles effected by this 
intelligence, when Mr. Frewen, opening the door with 
old-fashioned and stiff courtesy, ushered the interest- 
ing visitor into the room. 

A more oddly assorted couple than these two had 
surely never been seen. 

Mr. Frewen was one of those men of whom every 
one decides that they can never have been young. 
Under the middle height, with shoulders slightly bent, 
as if under the tremendous weight of the cares of his 
thriving business, with a round gray head, and an 
impassive smooth face, he was the very type of what 
a successful solicitor ought to be ; just formal enough 
in manner without being too stiff, just chary enough 
of words without being too taciturn, he was the man 
of all others to inspire confidence and to command 
respect. 

He wore side-whiskers, which were almost white; 
but no other hair on his shrewd, immovable face. 
And in his evening dress he looked, quite as much as 
in his sombre black frock-coat earlier in the day, 
every inch a lawyer. 

The lady who accompanied him, on the other hand, 
breathed an atmosphere of refined frivolity, tempered 
by the discretion of mature years, and brought with 
her into the room a certain air of being “ in the swim” 


17 


OUR V/IDQVr. 

of things which fascinated some of the occupants of 
the room, while it awakened the suspicion of the 
others. 

She was of perhaps no more than the middle height; 
but the way she dressed, and the manner in which 
she carried herself, made her appear tall. She was 
perfectly turned out from head to foot, and wore a 
gray gown lined with rose-pink, the touches of color 
showing around her feet when she sat down, a large 
gray hat with erect gray tips and rose-pink rosettes 
under the brim ; and a long wrap of gray velvet, lined 
with gray and rose-pink brocade. 

And she was very handsome ; there could be no two 
opinions about that. All that ill-nature might have 
suggested was that she was probably prettier now 
than she had been in her first youth, before she 
learned how to make art come to the assistance of 
bountiful nature. 

As it was, she was a delight to the eyes. Her 
large red-brown eyes were soft and gracious ; her pro- 
file was regular and handsome; and if, in the full 
face, the mouth was a trifle too long, and the shape 
of the face a little too square, these slight defects did 
not detract much from a beauty which was striking 
and indisputable. 

She walked well, with the air of a person who is 
used to excite attention. Coming at once toward the 
group of girls, she held out her hand with a winning 
smile. 

“ And these are the girls, of course?” she said, as 
Molly was the first to take her outstretched hand. 
“Now let me guess which this one is.” And she 
2 


18 


OUR WIDOW . 


carefully surveyed the three girls, one at a time, with 
such a charming expression of face that tney were 
all disarmed. “ I think this must be— Molly ?" 

“Yes, I'm Molly. And this is Bab, and this 
Try phena* n 

And Molly, who was the most favorably impressed 
of the ladies by the new-comer, then proceeded to 
introduce Miss Roscoe, who betrayed, by her sour, 
uncertain manner, the violent antipathy she already 
felt toward the interloper. 

Bab was already jealous, and she watched the atti- 
tude of the rest with quiet, shrewd eyes. Tiyphena 
was chiefly conscious of an overwhelming delight in 
Miss Roscoe' s evident discomfiture. 

Mr. Frewen did not leave them long in doubt as to 
the upshot of the long interview in the study. 

“Mrs. Weir, my dears," he announced, in his dry, 
incisive tones, as if he had been dictating a brief, is 
going to do us the honor of living with us. I hope 
you will all get on well together. And— and— " He 
evidently was searching, in his dry, hard way, for a 
complimentary and gallant speech to wind up with. 
“And I am sure, if you don't get on well together, it 
will be your fault, and not hers." 

“It's rather early days for such a decisive state- 
ment as that," remarked Mrs. Weir, with a laugh. 
“Perhaps she's showing her best goods in the win- 
dow, and will shortly be known, in confidential talk, 
as ‘an old cat' ! " 

“Doesn't Miss Roscoe hope that?" whispered Try- 
phena to Bradley Ingledew, who was edging himself 
a little nearer to the principal group in the hope 


OUR WIDOW. 


19 

of being noticed by Mrs. Weir. His action suc- 
ceeded. 

“And is this your son, Mr. Frewen?” she asked, 
graciously holding out her hand. 

“No, I have not that privilege,” said Bradley, 
speaking with the slightest of all possible brogues. 

“ — yet,” added Sam in his ear, but loud enough 
for some of the ladies to hear. 

“Be quiet, Sam,” said Bab serenely. 

“ He’s only a stray Irishman, and not thought much 
of here, ” explained Sam with unnecessarily politeness 
of manner, “ and as nobody will take the trouble to 
introduce me, I must do it myself. I’m Sam.” 

“And that’s all?” asked Mrs. Weir, smiling. 

“Yes, that’s all. Nobody troubles about any sur- 
name for me. I’ve got one; as a matter of fact it is 
Ritchie; but nobody ever thinks of using it, and you’ll 
make yourself undesirably conspicuous if you do.” 

“There, that’s enough about yourself, Sam,” inter- 
rupted Molly, pulling him back impatiently. “Mrs. 
Weir will see quite enough of you to know all that 
she wants about you, without your taking so much 
trouble to give yourself a character.” 

There was no doubt that Mrs. Weir was easy to get 
on with. Before she had been ten minutes in the 
room the general talk was fast and furious; the 
laughter was frequent; and Mrs. Weir, without appear- 
ing to take an undue share in the conversation, was 
the leading spirit of the merriment. 

Mr. Frewen was soon able to retreat to his favor- 
ite study without anybody missing him ; and under 
the new-comers auspices the evening passed so pleas- 


20 


OUR WIDOW. 


antly that, even when two or three more young men 
dropped in, “friends of Edgars — my brother’s,” as 
Molly explained, there was no adjournment to the 
billiard-room. 

When Mrs. Weir had gone, and the rest of the guests 
had quickly followed her example, Bradley Ingledew 
and Sam Eitchie walked part of the way home together. 
Sam lived in his father’s house in Onslow Square, 
while Bradley had chambers in the Albany. 

“You shouldn’t have said that to Bab, observed 
Sam, as he lit his pipe. 

“ Shouldn’t have said what?” 

“ What you did just now— that they would have to 
look to their laurels.” 

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s quite true. She’s d — d 
good-looking, this Mrs. Weir.” 

“ But why set them against her?” 

“Oh, it doesn’t make much difference. The ar- 
rangement can’t last long. Something will be found 
out about her; there’s always something to find out 
about a woman as handsome as that, when she calls 
herself a widow and springs from nobody knows 
where. ” 

“That’s awfully unfair, I think. Good looks are 
not a crime. You wouldn’t like to be set down as a 
murderer and a thief and a few other little things just 
because you can grow a decent mustache, and the 
women happen to like the combination of blue eyes 
with black hair!” 

Bradley, who was indeed very good-looking, 
laughed. 

“ Some other fellows seem to get on very well with- 


OUR WIDOW. 


21 


out that particular combination !” he remarked, “and 
I think myself, when a man doesn’t grow a mus- 
tache, it’s because he then gets looked upon as a 
harmless, necessary adjunct to a house full of pretty 
girls, who pull his ears, and tweak his hair, and gen- 
erally treat him with affectionate disrespect. Which 
he likes. Especially when Molly is the disrespectful 
ear-tweaker. ” 

“Don’t talk about Molly,” said Sam hastily, with 
a sudden change in his voice. 

“Why shouldn’t I talk about her? You know 
very well you don’t care to talk about anything else.” 

“I shouldn’t,” admitted Sam with a sigh, “if it 
was to be any good. But it isn’t. I’m getting more 
and more sure that it isn’t. Those poor little lasses! 
They do want some one to look after them.” 

“Well, don’t you look after them? You never 
seem to be doing anything else!” 

“ Oh, don’t be a fool. You know what I mean. A 
man can’t do much, unless a girl cares about him. 
And Molly doesn’t care for me, except, as you say, 
as a harmless necessary adjunct to the household. 
She doesn’t mind my scolding: she knows I’m too 
ready to forgive her. Besides, I have no right. 
And she wouldn’t care whether I forgave her or not. 
But I have hopes of Mrs^ Weir.” 

“I haven’t,” said Bradley. And after a short 
silence, he added drily: “I wonder whether she’ll 
hook the old man?” 

Sam shook his head. 

“ He’s too law-dried, ” said he. “ His skin is parch- 
ment; his bones are deeds; and his blood is fees. If 


22 OUR WIDOW. 

he knew the origin of that nice nut-brown tint in her 
hair, he’d have her thrown down the steps.” . 

“No, he’d serve a writ for summary ejection,” 
laughed Bradley. “But, old chap, don’t you know 
that’s the very sort of fish that’s bound to nibble at a 
bait like that?” 

“Well, we shall see,” said Sam, as, with a nod, he 
left his companion at the bottom of Hamilton Place. 


CHAPTEE III. 

“ If our paying guest pays as well as she dresses, 
observed Bab sententiously to her sisters, as she 
brushed her long hair in Molly’s room that night, 
“we oughtn’t to hear any more complaints from papa 
about the length of the bills we bring him!” 

“ But the advertisement said Moderate terms’ — ‘for 
the present.’ Wonder what ‘for the present’ means! 
So I expect she spends all her money on her dress,” 
remarked Tryphena. 

“I rather like her,” said Molly. “She’s such a 
relief after old Eoscoe’s perpetual nagging cry that 
this or that ‘isn’t ladylike.’ When she isn’t a bit 
like a lady herself.” 

“We shall have some fun between the two of them,” 
observed Tryphena. “ Miss Eoscoe is sharpening her 
claws. Did you notice the way in which she asked 
Mrs. Weir whether she was High Church or Low 
Church?” 

“And the sweet way in which Mrs. Weir answered 
that she didn’t care for either extreme? I know Miss 
Eoscoe was hoping she would say something flippant, 
that she could report to papa that Mrs. Weir was a 
dangerous person, with lax views!” said Molly. 

“All the boys seem to like her, don’t they?” re- 
marked Bab dubiously. “ How old do you suppose 
she is?” 


23 


24 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Can’t say. Didn’t detect a date anywhere,” re- 
plied her elder sister. “But I think she’s too good- 
natured to spoil our fun. I’m sure she’s mature 
enough to amuse herself with papa.” 

“ Amuse herself !” cried Tryphena. “ Why, Molly, 
you might as well talk about amusing one’s self with a 
‘Coke upon Littleton’ ! And what would Miss Boscoe 
say? She’s been hugging the hope of becoming our 
second mamma for ever so long, on the strength of 
his letting her warm his slippers!” 

“Hush! We are getting irreverent!” struck in 
Bab, who was the greatest stickler for the outward 
forms of etiquette and proper conduct. “ We can let 
the ladies fight it out between them; and we need 
not interfere unless they proceed to blows with him in 
the middle.” 

“And she comes next Tuesday! What fun! I 
want the time to come!” cried Tryphena. “ Only I’m 
too sleepy to discuss the great event any more now. 
Good-night, girls!” 

When Mrs. Weir did arrive, she brought with her 
such a lot of smart, interesting-looking luggage, sug- 
gestive of a boundless store of lovely Drench frocks, 
that Bab’s mouth began to water with curiosity and 
envy; and Mrs. Weir being clever enough to note this 
act, the afternoon was spent pleasantly for them all 
by her asking the girls to come and help her to un- 
pack her trunks, and advise her as to the best way to 
dispose of them. 

Bab found this an amusement so greatly to her 
taste that she afterward owned frankly she had 
never been happier in her life. She could give valu- 


OUR WIDOW. 


25 


able hints, too, as to the best use of the space in cup- 
board and wardrobe, having studied the subject of 
gowns and fripperies with an ardor which had made 
her wise beyond her years on such points. 

It gave her intense delight to be allowed to try on 
Mrs. Weir’s hats, capes, and ruffles; and the present 
of a scrap of ‘point ducliesse ,’ ‘real, my dear, and not 
what we can buy out of our allowance, ’ threw her 
into quite an ecstasy of happiness. 

Bab had the quietest manners of the three, and 
was the only one whose feelings did not show on the 
surface as surely as an image is reflected in a looking- 
glass. 

By the time dinner was over, every trace of the 
constraint between strangers had disappeared, except 
in the case of Miss Roscoe, who openly sulked, and 
only failed to spoil everybody else’s pleasure because 
she was one of those persons who are too colorless to 
make their mark on a circle of people. 

“Here comes the standing dish!” cried Tryphena 
as, on leaving the dining-room, they met Sam putting 
his hat on the hat-stand. “Why didn’t you come to 
dinner, Sam?” 

“ I wanted to give you a rest, to make myself ap- 
preciated. How do you do, Mrs. Weir? I’m sure 
you must be glad to see some one besides those dread- 
ful girls. Have they made your head ache with their 
noise?” 

“Not yet,” said she laughing. 

“You won’t own it, but they have, I know. I’m 
going to take you into the conservatory, to give you a 
little rest. Please, you’re expected to admire the 


26 


OUR WIDOW. 


arrangement of that conservatory, because it was I 
who fitted it up.” 

And Sam led the way through the front drawing- 
room to the smaller back room, where there was, as 
he had said, a conservatory, by courtesy so-called, 
where a dozen ferns and a couple of good-sized palms 
made a fair show in the midst of the usual ‘Oriental’ 
bric-a-brac. 

Tryphena bounced across the room after them. 

“Now, Sam, you’re not to monopolize Mrs. Weir. 
And you know she’ll spoil her nice frock against your 
nasty plants!” 

“No, she won’t. I’m being very careful. I’m 
going to hedge her round with newspapers, as soon as 
she sits down, and keep her beautifully dry and 
clean.” 

And he waved the girl away with a certain look in 
his face which showed her that he was in earnest in 
spite of his light tone. 

As soon as Mrs. Weir, professing admiration of his 
arrangements as she was expected to do, had seated 
herself in a basket chair, and assured him that her 
gown, which was of dark-green silk, glistening with 
‘moonlight’ spangles, would suffer no harm from his 
plants, Sam leaned against the door-frame and turned 
suddenly grave. 

“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, perceiving 
that there was something of importance to be heard. 

“I am trying to make up my mind whether I shall 
tell you a secret — which can be no secret — and ask 
your advice upon a matter on which you would, I am 
sure, prefer to have no opinion.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


2 ? 

“This is very mysterious. And perhaps rather 
alarming. But I am too old to be easily frightened. 
So you had better make up your mind to confess, to 
unburden yourself.” 

“I wanted you to say that,” said he. “And I 
expected it. It is about these girls I want to speak.” 

And he paused. 

“ Well, go on,” said Mrs. Weir. And in the brown 
eyes, as she looked up at him, Sam saw a look of 
intelligent sympathy which suggested that his tale 
would not be a difficult one to tell. “ They are dear 
girls, but ” 

She stopped. Sam drew a long breath. 

“ That’s just it,” said he. “They’re dear girls, 
the dearest girls in the world — but — and I want 
you to know how that ‘but’ came about.” 

Mrs. Weir shook her head very gravely, very 
kindly. 

“The tale needs no telling,” said she. “They 
have been badly brought up, very badly ; not put into 
proper hands, in fact.” 

“That’s it,” said Sam earnestly. “They haven’t 
been properly looked after ; they have been allowed 
to run wild since they left school. And their father, 
through being too strict, has overshot the mark, so 
that as he would be harsh and angry, he hears 
nothing. ” 

“And this Miss Boscoe, who is supposed to look 
after them?” 

“ Is too lazy and too selfish to make things unpleas- 
ant either by telling him or by correcting them, ex- 
cept in a way which is only a further incitement to 


28 


OUR WIDOW. 


them to disobey her. So that there is nobody whose 
opinion they care for, and they get more and more 
uncontrollable, until one doesn’t like to think where 
it will end.” 

There was a long pause. Mrs. Weir bowed her 
head, and remained thoughtful. At last she looked 
up suddenly : 

“ And what makes you tell me this? How do you 
think I can help you — or them?” 

Sam looked rather taken aback; but only for a 
moment. 

u I believe you are the sort of a woman who could 
do it, if you cared to try,” said he, with some con- 
straint. “The sort of woman who — who under- 
stands.” 

A sudden bright look of intelligence, of shrewd, 
keen sympathy seemed to light up her handsome face. 

“That’s true, at least,” she said shortly. “There 
is hardly a trial, a temptation, to which a girl, a 
woman can be exposed, which I do not understand. 
But to help — ah, that is different!” 

“ I believe you have heart enough to try,” said Sam 
in a low voice, after another short pause. 

Mrs. Weir glanced up at him with some evident 
alarm. 

“ What right have you — ” she began quickly, almost 
angrily ; and then she broke off and laughed. 

“ What right have I to suppose you have a heart?” 
asked Sam, laughing also. 

Mrs. Weir twisted one of the rings on her white 
fingers. 

“Well, we will suppose, for the sake of argument, 


OUR WIDOW. 


29 


that I have one,” she said, without looking up. “ And 
in the mean time we will continue our conversation in 
the drawing-room, or we shall spoil everything by 
bringing upon ourselves the suspicion of plotting.” 
And she rose and sauntered back through the draw- 
ing-room, stopping at a side-table to open an inane 
drawing-room book, with illustrations much too good 
for the letter -press. 

Some more “ friends of Edgar’s” had come in, and 
the girls were talking eagerly and brightly, all but 
Molly, who was hovering near the window, and from 
time to time peeping furtively, when she thought no 
one was looking, behind the blind, out into the street 
below. 

Sam saw her, and his face clouded. 

“ Look at that girl, ” said he in a low, anxious voice. 
“ She is waiting for some one, some one whom her 
father won’t allow in the house. Presently she will 
make some excuse, or slip out of the room without 
being seen, and will appear no more during the 
evening. ” 

“But this is serious,” said Mrs. Weir. 

“Indeed it is. But what’s to be done? There’s 
no talking to the child, no warning her. She’ s too in- 
nocent. She admires this man because, as she says, 
he’s ‘so awfully wicked,’ without having the slightest 
idea, poor child, what the words mean.” 

“Why doesn’t some one tell her father?” 

“Because,” Sam’s voice faltered — “there would be 
a scene, a row, and the next day, to judge by what 
we know of the headstrong, spoilt little creature, she 
might have disappeared.” 


30 


OUR WIDOW . 


Even as Mrs. Weir stared blankly as Sam, the 
sound of a softly closing door made them both turn 
round. 

Molly had disappeared. 

“Come into the next room,” said Sam, “and see 
him for yourself. ” 

They passed through the laughing throng, all of 
whom were by this time too busy with their own flir- 
tations to give more than momentary heed to those 
two as they went by; and Mrs. Weir sat down on a 
chair close to the window, and, on a sign from Sam, 
looked through the space between the blind and the 
window -frame. 

To Sam’s astonishment, her face grew on the in- 
stant deadly white, and her eyes, as they turned quick- 
ly from the window to his face, were full of terror. 

“Who is it? Who is he?” she asked quickly, 
below her breath. 

“ Sir Walter Hay.” 

As Sam had at once suspected, it was the name she 
had been prepared to hear. 

“That man!” she repeated to herself. “That 
man!” Then turning to Sam, she said aloud: “This 
must be stopped. He is one of the worst men in 
London. You are interested in this young girl; you 
must stop this.” 

“How can I? She won’t listen to what I say. 
You, who know him ” 

The glance she threw at him cut him short. 

“I mean by reputation,” he corrected hastily. 
“ You could give her a warning to which she would 
be forced to listen.” 


OUR WIDOW . 


31 


The beautiful face of Mrs. Weir had suddenly lost 
its pinkness, its well-preserved look, and become old 
and worn. She shook her head with a look of fear, 
and sighed. 

“ What is the use of my denying that I know him, 
and that he knows me?” she said in a dull, hopeless 
tone. “ I will tell you further that when he finds out 
I am here, he will destroy my credit with you, with 
everybody. My only chance of being left in peace 
by him lies in my doing what I can to further his 
wishes. Do you understand my position now?” 

Sam looked at the woman steadily. 

"Then you decline to interfere?” said he, not 
harshly, but with deep earnestness. "You forget 
that his credit is so bad here that he cannot injure 
yours. He is not even allowed to visit here.” 

Mrs. Weir looked drearily at the merry group 
whose chatter was like music to her world-weary ears. 

“ For the sake of your confidence, odd though it is, ” 
she said at last, in a flippant tone through which Sam 
detected the ring of true feeling, “ I will try. I will 
set myself to be unselfish for the first time in my life. 
But mind,” she added, raising a warning forefinger 
at him as she got up from her chair, “ don’t hope too 
much. This man is an antagonist who has, where a 
woman is concerned, never been beaten yet.” 

It was a horrible thought which these words sug- 
gested. And Sam, loving the girl with all his heart, 
shivered and felt sick at the peril from which he 
himself was powerless to save her. 


CHAPTEK IV. 


It so happened that, following close upon the arrival 
of Mrs. Weir at No. 203 Cirencester Terrace, and her 
establishment in the vague character of “paying 
guest, ” Sam had a spell of hard work at the office 
where he earned the respectable salary of two hun- 
dred a year ; and for more than a fortnight he never 
appeared at the Frewen house at all. 

Not even on Saturdays, an omission which was 
quite startling; for it had been his custom, from a 
period forgotten in the dim mist of time, for him to 
put in an appearance at an early hour on that day, to 
take the girls, or as many of them as wanted to go, 
for a row, or a drive, or walk, followed by tea at an 
A. B. C. 

On the third Saturday, however, directly after 
luncheon, Molly had just opened the front door, and 
was letting herself out with as little noise as possible, 
when she came face to face with Sam on the bottom 
step. 

“ Hallo !” cried she. And a flush which had in 
it as much guilty confusion as pleasure mounted into 
her round cheeks. “ I thought you were never com- 
ing any more!” 

“No, you didn’t!” said Sam quietly. 

And he stood on the step, and planting a very 
32 


OUR WIDOW. 


33 


handsome walking-stick on the step above him, he 
leaned upon it and surveyed her calmly. 

“And what a swell you are!” 

Sam, without immediately answering, proceeded to 
inspect her dress minutely, beginning at the big hat 
of drawn silk and muslin, pausing an instant to take 
in the details of long white suede gloves and silk mus- 
lin ruffle, and bestowing critical approval on her 
frock, which was of plain Holland-colored Tussore 
silk. 

“ Perhaps one might suggest that you also are not 
always quite so smart.” 

“The cane too; that’s new, I’ll swear!” remarked 
Molly, without condescending to notice his observa- 
tion. 

“ Allow me, in passing, to mention, that ladies are 
not allowed to swear at all, except in a court of jus- 
tice, where they are expected to forswear themselves 
for want of practice.” 

“ Where did you get that walking-stick?” 

“A lady gave it to me.” 

“That’s not true!” 

The tone was rather sharp. 

“ It is true, madam. Surely you know better than 
to suppose that a man, and particularly a modest man 
like me, would buy himself such a thing as that!” 

And Sam presented the walking-stick, which was 
ebony, mounted in gold, for her inspection. 

Molly took it with a heightened color, examined 
it in silence, and then, with a vicious little grimace, 
snapped the stick in half and glared up at him. She 
was panting with anger ; but, of course, wilful little 
3 


34 


OUR WIDOW. 


wretch as she was, she was sorry and ashamed of her- 
self the moment after. As soon as her eyes met his 
she burst into tears. 

This stick was a handsome one, and Sam had been 
rather proud of it: but those tears were worth the 
price to him. 

“Silly child!” said he very gently, as he took one 
of the pieces from her hand, and picked up the other, 
which she had dropped, “What are you worrying 
yourself about? My sister gave me the stick last 
Tuesday on my birthday. You might have known.” 

Molly was half -choking in her efforts to stop her 
tears, and to persuade him into thinking, if that were 
still possible, that she had shed no tears at all. She 
tried to laugh. 

“Was Tuesday your birthday? I — I — Pm sorry I 
forgot it. And — ” By this time she had gulped 
down the tears, and was ready to be impudent 
again. “It was all your fault about the stick. Now 
wasn’t it?” 

“Oh, I suppose so. Yes, yes, certainly it was. 
I ought to have considered who I had to deal with.” 

“Now that’s what I call being very unkind, and 
nasty, and everything that is hateful and odious ! To 
go on sneering at a person, when that person has said 
she’s sorry, and wants to — to ” 

“To make amends? Well, you shall. You shall 
come for a walk in the park, and be nice all the time.” 

But Molly’s visage, as indeed he had feared would 
be the case, had grown suddenly blank. 

“Oh!” said she. 

And then there was an ominous pause. 


OUR WIDOW. 


35 


“You had made other arrangements, I suppose ?” 
he asked coldly. 

“Well, you see, you haven’t been here for two 
Saturdays, nor sent word that you were not com- 
ing ” 

“ You have forgotten. The last time I saw you, 
the night Mrs. Weir came, I told you I should be 
very busy at the office for nearly three weeks, and 
that you were not to expect me unless I wired.” 

“ Did you say all that?” asked Molly, with real or 
affected incredulity. “I don’t remember it.” 

Sam’s tone was rather bitter as he answered: 

“No. Because you never pay much attention to 
what I say. And because you have grown so used to 
my being at your beck and call that you don’t think 
anything either of me or what I do.” 

“ Oh, if you’re going to be disagreeable ” 

“But, bless your little heart, I’m not. I ‘know 
my place, mum,’ and I’m not going to grumble.” 

“No, no, of course you’re not. And you needn’t 
talk as if you were a martyr. Go inside, and you’ll 
find Bab in the dining-room.” 

“ I know. I saw her as I came up, and she kissed 
her hand to me.” 

“ Yes. That’s because she’s got nobody to go out 
with. I know she will be very amiable.” 

“ Bab always is amiable. It’s somebody else who 
is crotchety.” 

“Well, you won’t have to suffer from my crotchets 
to-day.” 

And she tried to make a dive past him. But he 
stopped her. 


36 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Come, is that fair? After forgetting my birth- 
day, and breaking my stick!” 

“ Are you going to throw that in my face 
again?” 

“I won’t, if you’ll accept my terms.” 

“ Pshaw ! What terms?” 

“ Throw over the other fellow, and come out with 
me.” 

“There is no fellow in the case. I — I’m going to 
tea with Aunt Tabitha.” 

Sam looked stolid, but affected to believe her. 
Now, thought he, I’ve got her into a corner! 

“In Wilton Place? All right. I’ll take you there. 
Miss Melbury was good enough to say I might call 
upon her whenever I liked. ” 

“Yes. She likes good young men,” said Molly, 
with fierce sarcasm. 

“Well, come along. And if you’re very good, 
we’ll have a hansom.” 

“ Thank you, I shall not go with you. I prefer to 
'go by myself.” 

There was a little anxiety now in Sam’s eyes. 
Her obstinacy was not usually so lasting. He was 
trying to devise some way of coaxing her into com- 
pliance when the door opened again, and Bab ap- 
peared, looking particularly fresh and pretty in gray 
alpaca with a yellow straw hat trimmed with dark 
green wing, ivy leaves, and cherries. 

She was panting, and her face lighted up with 
satisfaction as she softly shut the door. 

“We must oil the hinges again, Molly,” she said 
ingenuously. “It’s beginning to squeak again.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


37 


“What does it matter if it does squeak?” asked 
Sam severely. 

“ Oh, of course it doesn’t matter now, when we’re 
going out ‘on the square’ with you. But we some- 
times find it convenient, when we have retired to our 
rooms for a couple of hours’ quiet talk, or for a nap, 
or to mend our clothes — one excuse is as good as an- 
other — to have this door in good working order.” 

Now although Sam knew enough of the girls and 
their ways not to be astonished at this brazen confes- 
sion, he was considerably alarmed by it. But he 
knew that Bab’s frankness put him upon his honor 
not to betray her, and he thought it wiser not to show 
all he felt. 

“ You’re a lot of young monkeys,” was all he said. 

“I was so afraid you’d both be gone before I could 
get ready,” gasped Bab. “You’ll have to put the 
pins in my hat better, Molly, when we’ve got a little 
way. Where are you going to take us, Sam? You 
don’t mind me going too, do you?” 

Sam had, without appearing to do so, kept an eye 
upon Molly while her sister rattled on ; and he had 
come to the conclusion that she felt she was caught, 
and meant to make the best of it. 

“Well, we were going to Miss Melbury’s,” said he. 

Molly was standing on the lowest step of all. He 
was on the next with his back to her ; Bab was at the 
top. Unseen by her elder sister, therefore, Bab 
could and did bestow upon Sam a slight but know- 
ing wink. She also slightly inclined her head in the 
direction of her sister, and clapped her little hands 
softly in approval of his strategy. 


38 


OUR WIDOW. 


“But,” went on Sam, not daring to give any ac- 
knowledgment of her signals, “it would be much 
more fun to go to the park, and then to have tea 
somewhere, and to go to Earl’s Court to wind up, 
wouldn’t it?” 

Erom the pantomime with which Bab favored him 
at this point, Sam gathered that this was much the 
same programme that Molly had been proposing to 
carry out with somebody else. The thought sent 
daggers into Sam. And his suffering were not all 
from jealousy. 

“Well, and what does Molly say?” he asked 
quietly. 

“Oh, Molly says she supposes so,” replied that 
young person ungraciously enough. “Anything to 
put an end to this long discussion on the doorstep.” 

And so they all walked away down the street to- 
gether, Sam trying not to show the satisfaction he felt 
at having for once beaten the enemy in the most 
decided manner. 

“Where’s Phena?” asked he, as they went along. 

“Oh, she’s all right,” said Bab. “Yes, I really 
mean it; she’s doing the proper thing. She’s going 
to a concert with Mrs. Weir.” 

“Oh! — and why weren’t you going with them?” 

Bab’s fair face puckered into a frown. At the 
same moment a curious change came over the manner 
of Molly also. 

“ Thereby hangs a tale, ” said Bab. 

“ Well?” 

“ Oh, well, you shall hear it all presently. In 
fact, we’ve been dying to tell you ” 


OUR WIDOW . 


39 


“ I haven’t, ” put in Molly. 

“ Oh, yes, you have, dear. When my mental 
barometer says ‘Set Fair’ on matters of this kind, 
yours does too. And when mine is at ‘ Stormy, ’ why, 
yours is sure to be veering round in that direction.” 

“That’s rather neat, Bab. You’re getting quite 
witty,” said Sam. “But what’s this little cloud on 
your horizon?” 

Bab made a significant pause. 

“Mrs. Weir,” said she at last in solemn tones. 

“Why, isn’t the paying guest a success?” 

Here Molly, having got over her ill-humor, broke 
in: 

“No, indeed she’s not.” 

“ On the contrary, ” pursued Bab in a lofty tone, 
“she’s already got very near to being a complete 
failure. ” 

“ In what way?” 

Here both girls began to speak together, in tones 
of great irritation. Between them, it was some min- 
utes before he fully appreciated what the grievance 
was. 

“ She is always finding occupations for us ” 

“ Wholesome occupations ” 

“ And wanting us to stay at home and learn new 
music and new songs ” 

“ And to read books that she chooses for us, you 
know, entertaining without being unwholesomely 
exciting ” 

“ Isn’t it perfectly disgusting?” 

“ And she takes us with her shopping, and to con- 
certs, and even to picture-galleries. Just fancy!” 


40 


OUR WIDOW. 


“It’s very awful, no doubt, since you both seem to 
find it so trying. But I really don’t, on the face of 
it, see where the sting of the grievance is. You’ve 
been to picture-galleries with me, and though your 
art criticisms have never got above mediocrity, you 
haven’t seemed to be much bored.” 

“Oh, don’t be silly, Sam!” 

“He’s only pretending,” said Molly severely. 
“ He understands all the time. She’s trying to re- 
form us, that’s what she’s doing. And it’s like her 
cheek!” 

“ She’s got in the thin end of the wedge already,” 
observed Bab gloomily. “ Tryphena follows her 
about like her shadow. Molly and I were caught in 
the net at first, and went with her like lambs to the 
St. James’s Hall, to hear somebody or other sing. 
But of course we soon tumbled to it, and kicked.” 

“ By the bye, ” said Sam, “ does she always under- 
stand what you say?” 

“She pretends not to, of course,” answered Molly. 
“But I’m sure she does.” 

“ People who can dress as well as she does know 
about everything that’s worth knowing,” added Bab 
sententiously. 

“And as for talking slang,” said Molly restively, 
“when people pretend not to understand it, I just 
use more than usual.” 

“I shouldn’t think that was possible.” 

Molly stopped short. 

“If you’re going to be insulting, I shall go back,” 
said she. 

“Now, isn’t that logical? You say there’s no 


OUR WIDOW. 


41 


harm in talking slang ; and when I say you use a 
good deal, which is undeniable, you say I insult you.” 

“Don’t take any notice of what he says, dear,” 
said Bab. “We don’t want to hear what he thinks; 
we only want to make him hear what we think.” 

“And it’s just this,” went on Molly darkly, “that 
if she doesn’t leave off interfering with us ” 

“Well?” 

“I shall ” 

“ You shall what?” 

“Scoot,” finished Molly promptly. 

“ My dear girl ” 

“Oh, no, I’m not your dear girl. You’re nearly 
as bad as she is, with your everlasting talk about 
what is ‘ proper,’ and the rest of it. You’re another 
of the people who think girls ought never to have any 
amusement but darning socks!” 

“It isn’t as if,” put in Bab sedately, “there were 
any harm in what we do. We only want to enjoy 
ourselves harmlessly, and to have a little amusement 
while we are young. The darning is a pleasure which 
will keep, and which we are sure to have enough of 
by and by.” 

“ But you’re not particular enough in what you do 
and what you say. It doesn’t matter what you say 
to me, because I’m only old Sam; but lots of things 
I’ve heard you girls say sound awful to people who 
don’t know you as well as I do.” 

“ Now what things? And who do we say them to? 
I’ve never found anybody disgusted with what we 
say. It’s only you, Sam, because you’re such an 
old fidget, and because you don’t like us to talk to 


OUR WIDOW. 


42 

any one but you. Now just confess that that’s the 
reason. Because we won’t go any further with you 
till you do.” 

And Molly and Bab both assumed attitudes expres- 
sive of the indignation they felt at his ridiculous and 
mean accusations. 

“Oh, that’s the reason, of course,” answered Sam 
drily. “I know by experience that you girls are 
always right; or that if you’re not, you manage to 
make it jolly uncomfortable for those that are.” 

“No, but I won’t be shut up like that!” protested 
Molly with spirit, “you’ve brought an accusation, and 
you must just prove it, or else own properly that you 
were in the wrong. Now, who are the people we’ve 
disgusted with what we say? Lindo Goring perhaps, 
or Tamperley, or Bradley Ingledew?” 

“I didn’t say you disgusted them, or anybody. 
But don’t you think, if Mr. Frewen could hear you 
talking to those fellows, for instance, he’d open his 
eyes sometimes?” 

“Papa!” ejaculated Bab in a tone of the deepest 
scorn at the suggestion. “Now is there anything a 
girl could say, beyond asking for the bread and but- 
ter, that wouldn’t shock papa? Take some human 
instance, if you please.” 

“Well, I know he’s perhaps even over-particular, 
but he’s quite on the right side in liking girls who 
are quiet and fond of their home.” 

“Well, we are fond of our home, when it’s full of 
bright people,” retorted Molly. “I don’t see any 
virtue in doting on the tables and chairs?” 

“Oh, Molly! did you see that lovely hat, in the 


OUR WIDOW. 


43 


victoria that passed just now? My dear, it was a 
dream! If only I’d had the time to get a good long 
look!” 

“Which one? Where?” cried Molly with excite- 
ment. 

And after that Sam found it impossible to fix their 
attention on mere questions of manners and morals. 

They had a lovely day; they acknowledged it 
themselves when, after sitting in the park, and criti- 
cising the frocks and their wearers, they spent the 
evening at the exhibition and insisted on Sam’s taking 
them back along Piccadilly on the top of an omnibus. 

“IPs been just perfect,” said Bab. “Sam, you’re 
a . dear. If ever I get tired of Bradley Ingledew, I 
shall fall in love with you!” 

“ Fm not the sort of person girls fall in love with. 
Am I, Molly?” 

“ You’re too nice,” replied Molly affectionately. 
“ Bab only falls in love with people who don’t matter. 
And I don’t go in for that sort of thing at all.” 

“ Don’t you?” said Sam in a low voice. “ Then I 
wish you’d try!” 

Bab was on the front garden-seat by herself ; and 
Sam and Molly were together on the seat behind. 
Bab turned round : 

“ I do hope you won’t make love to her now, Sam,” 
said she plaintively. “It will be so slow for me. 
Besides, the brim of your hat will tickle the back of 
my neck presently; I can feel it getting nearer!” 

Molly gave Sam a push. 

“ Go and sit next to her, Sam. I don’t care if you 
make love to her!” she said. 


44 


OUR WIDOW. 


She spoke on the spur of the moment, nettled by 
Bab’s words, and really anxious that Sam should not 
grow “ sentimental.” But she did see the look on his 
face as he quietly obeyed her and changed his place ; 
and her heart smote her. 

The girl was headstrong and wilful, and her mad 
freaks and caprices were taking her into grave peril, 
as Sam feared. But want of heart was not one of her 
failings. 

At Piccadilly Circus they had to get down, to 
change into a “ green Bayswater. ” This arrangement 
was much against Sam’s will, as it was by this time 
very late, and the circus was already thronged by the 
usual disorderly crowd. The first omnibus that 
passed was full; and Bab, apparently no more 
fatigued than she had been at starting, made a dash 
across the road, expressing her intention of walking as 
far as Oxford Street, where, she said, there was a 
better chance of getting an omnibus. So the others 
were obliged to follow her, and Sam hurried the girls 
along as fast as he could. 

As they drew near the Cafe Boyal, his attention 
was suddenly attracted by the sight of a face and 
figure he thought he recognized; and the shock of 
surprise it gave him, when, the moment after, he as- 
certained by another look that his suspicions were 
correct, turned him sick. Luckily, he was so much 
startled that for a moment his muscles were not under 
entire control, and Bab, who was in the middle, and 
who had taken his arm, felt a slight involuntary 
movement which diverted her attention from the 
people who were standing at the door of the restau- 


OUR WIDOW. 


45 


rant. He saw that the girl looked up at him, and, 
with an inspiration, he drew the girls abruptly round 
and hailed the nearest of the file of hansoms that 
were crawling slowly past. 

“Come along, girls; we ? ll have a hansom. I’ve 
got a stone in my boot.” 

He bundled them in, and before getting in himself 
gave one more glance back at the doorway of the 
Cafe Koyal. Then he jumped in, giving the driver 
the address. 

Molly and Bab shared the same room. It was not 
until after each had got into her little bed that night 
that Bab said carelessly to her sister : 

“ Did you see any one you knew at the door of the 
Cafe Boyal, Molly? With some one else? Some one 
we didn’t know?” 

“No,” answered Molly with interest. “Who was 
it?” 

There was a long pause. 

“ Who was it, Bab?” asked Molly more shrilly. 

For answer Bab pretended to snore; and Molly, 
though she was full of curiosity, knew her sister 
better than to repeat the question. Bab was “ close, ” 
very “ close” when she liked. And she liked to be so 
now. 


CHAPTER V. 


The next day was Sunday, and Sam, after having 
been informed that they were too tired to go to church 
“ in the morning. ” had invited himself to luncheon. 

So he presented himself at about half -past one, and 
found himself the earliest visitor. The weather had 
changed suddenly from warm and sunny to gray and 
rather cold. The change seemed to have affected the 
spirits of all the ladies, for the younger ones were 
silent and rather “ snappy,” and Mrs. Weir, who 
greeted Sam kindly, looked worried and rather bored ; 
while Miss Roscoe glowered at everybody sullenly 
over a devotional book in a corner. 

Only Edgar, Mr. Frewen’s eldest child and only 
son, was quite his usual self. But as that meant that 
he was taciturn and morose, this did not help matters. 
He was strikingly unlike his half-sisters, and was 
much older than they, being the son of the first Mrs. 
Frewen, while they were the children of the second. 
Of slight build, very pale, with black hair and eyes, 
he always seemed to be oppressed with weighty cares, 
and to find the society of his lively sisters irritating 
rather than exhilarating. Therefore he was seldom 
seen at home, except on Sundays, and then only for 
the briefest possible time. 

Bab, who was crouching on the hearth-rug, was the 
first to welcome the new arrival. 

46 


OUR WIDOW. 


47 


“Look here, Sam, isn’t it horrid? We’ve had to 
take to fires again; and it w-w-won’t burn up, and 
I’m so cold!” 

Sam stooped to shake her hand, and kept it for a 
minute in his. 

“Why, you’re quite cold! I shan’t take you out 
again. You must have taken cold on the omnibus 
last night.” 

“Rubbish! It’s papa who has given us cold. He 
came in just now, and scolded us all for not having 
been to church. And he says we’re not to go out 
again so late on Saturdays, since it makes us too lazy 
to attend to ‘our religious duties.’ ” 

“I knew he would. I told you so.” 

“Well, who would have thought of his coming in 
here? Generally he comes straight home from his 
own church— some fussy old place where they don’t 
even chant the psalms — and into the study, and 
doesn’t come out till luncheon — I mean dinner-time!” 

“ You ought to go to church with him ! I shall 
speak to the governor, and get him to make you,” 
put in Edgar shortly. “To go rambling about all 
over the place, as you do, first to one church and then 
to another, is not decent; it’s worse than going to no 
church at all. He’ll have to keep you better in 
hand.” 

There was dead silence. The girls were as much 
afraid of Edgar as they were of their father, and 
avoided offending him when they could. Molly, who 
was sitting very quietly in the inner drawing-room 
reading a letter furtively between the pages of Blair’s 
“ Sermons, ” threw Bab a look, without speaking. 


48 


OUR WIDOW. 


Edgar saw this, and, crossing the room at a bound, 
snatched away the book from Molly’s hands. 

The girl gave a scream, and tried to get it back; 
but Edgar pulled the letter out, and read aloud the 
first words that caught his eye : 

“ And as my little darling knows that I can’t let two 
whole days pass without a sight of her sweet little 
face, she must manage to meet ” 

Molly, after tearing in vain, with the energy of a 
little tigress, at her brother’s uplifted arm, was stand- 
ing white and terror-struck in the middle of the room, 
with her little hands tightly clasped, and her face ex- 
pressing a whole tragedy of emotions. But a friend 
had come to her rescue. Sam, touched by the poor 
child’s misery, and unwilling, whatever her indiscre- 
tion might be, that she should fall into the power 
of the injudicious and unsympathetic Edgar, inter- 
posed. 

He snatched the letter from the young man’s hand, 
saying good-humoredly : 

“Come, that’s not quite fair, is it?” 

The letter was torn in the effort made by Edgar to 
retain it, and a scrap fell to the floor. Molly fell 
down upon it, snatching it up like a hungry animal. 
As she looked up she met Sam’s eyes, and from white 
grew in a moment crimson. 

He had hoped, till that moment, that her constant 
asseverations were true, that she was not in love, that 
she had never been in love. While he believed that, 
he could hope that the perilous game he knew her to 
be playing was for vanity, for amusement only. But 
this letter, and the eagerness she had shown over it, 


OUR WIDOW . 


49 


opened his eyes. He scarcely heard the abuse to 
which Edgar treated him. 

It was Mrs. Weir who came forward to set matters 
right again. And under cover of her movement 
Molly escaped from the room with the fragments of 
her letter. 

“ My dear Mr. Frewen, it was rather hard upon the 
child, wasn’t it?” said she, with her bland smile; “ we 
none of us like to have our letters read aloud — - — ” 

“ But she has no business to receive them, ” retorted 
Edgar, “for there’s no knowing, with these girls, 
who it comes from. I only wish my father had been 
here when I got hold of it!” 

“And I,” went on Mrs. Weir sweetly, “am very 
glad that he wasn’t. He would certainly have 
thought the matter of more consequence than it is.” 

Bab, who had risen to her feet, and who had been 
watching and listening in silence, but with breathless 
attention, gave a sigh of intense relief when the scene 
was over. 

“Oh, Sam!” she whispered, when he had discreetly 
withdrawn from the scene of action, and left Mrs. 
Weir to settle the matter with Edgar, “ I’m trembling 
all over! What an escape! You don’t know what a 
scene there would have been if he’d seen who that 
letter was from and taken it to papa!” 

“And I’m not at all sure it wouldn’t have served 
her right if he had,” replied Sam severely. “And 
some of your correspondence wants overhauling too, 
young woman, if I’m not mistaken.” 

Bab drew herself up with serene impertinence. 

“ I’m too careful for anything of that sort to hap- 
4 


50 


OUR WIDOW. 


pen with me,” said she. “Besides, the only one that 
matters never writes.” 

Sam pricked his ears. These words set him 
thinking. 

“ Oh, he’s careful too?” was all he said. But he 
began to wonder whether clever Bab did not want 
more looking after than the less cautious Molly. 


CHAPTER VI. 


It was a relief to everybody’s feelings, which were 
at rather a high tension, when there was a fresh 
arrival in the person of Lindo Goring, one of the 
habitues of the house, surnamed “ the makeweight, ” 
because his powers of entertaining did not come up to 
the girls’ standard. 

He got quite an unusual share of everybody’s atten- 
tion, and did not fall back into his proper place until 
after the early dinner which was one of the distin- 
guishing features of the Frewen Sunday. 

There was no reason in the world why dinner should 
not have been at the usual time, except that this 
would have conflicted with Mr. Frewen’ s old-fash- 
ioned ideas of respectability. For the eight o’clock 
supper, which was another institution to mark the day, 
was a banquet of a rather elaborate description. 

Dinner over, Mr. Frewen disappeared into his 
study again, and Edgar went out. There was a uni- 
versal sigh of relief as the rest trooped upstairs to the 
drawing-room and broke up into groups. 

Mrs. Weir took her favorite chair in the corner 
between the fireplace and one of the windows, and 
beckoned Sam to come to her. 

“ It was very good of you to come to my rescue 
with young Frewen,” said he; “it saved a row.” 

“ Really I’m not sure that I ought not to have let 

51 


52 


OUR WIDOW. 


the 'row’ happen!” said she doubtfully. "These 
girls are impossible! One doesn’t know what tQ do 
for the best with them! Are they unique?” 

Sam laughed. 

"Not by any means/’ said he. "I’ve known 
others even in my experience; though none that I’ve 
liked so well.” 

“I like them too/’ admitted Mrs. Weir. "If one 
were not interested in what’s going to become of 
them, they would be amusing. And they are affec- 
tionate and natural— a little too natural. But, Mr. 
Ritchie, they are more than a little vulgar, aren’t 
they?” 

"I don’t think so,” said Sam stoutly, as he took a 
low chair, and drew it nearer to her. " To my think- 
ing, there is no vulgarity without either coarseness or 
pretension. The slang they use seems to me to become 
a different thing on their innocent lips from what it 
originally was.” 

"And pray, what do you think of their ideals? 
Their ambitions?” 

"Why, they have neither the one nor the other. 
No more than the birds have. And you can’t under- 
stand the delightful change they are after the hordes 
of well-brought-up girls I know— my own sisters 
among the number, whose one ideal and ambition is 
to make a 'good’ marriage!” 

" You are too sweeping. There are plenty of girls 
who steer clear of the two extremes.” 

“I know there are. And plenty more daring as 
these, but not so innocent. But the 'safe’ girls have 
not the life and 'go’ of Bab and Molly, who make 


OUR WIDOW . 


53 


them seem colorless and dull. There is all the anx- 
iety of their future, too, to make them interesting.” 

“ You are in love with Molly. Why don’t you tell 
her so?” 

“It would do no good, harm perhaps. And she 
knows it, and presumes upon it besides. Look at 
the glances she throws over here every now and then, 
just because she’s jealous that I should seem inter- 
ested in talk with another lady!” 

“ Let her be jealous. It is good for you both. And 
where there is jealousy, surely there is some hope?” 

Sam shook his head. 

“That doesn’t follow. It might perhaps, if it 
were not for this other fellow. That letter was from 
him, of course.” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

Sam looked black. 

“ And the little fool won’t hear a word ! Or, rather, 
the more she hears the less he heeds. But one might 
punch his head!” 

“It might have an excellent effect on his looks, 
from your point of view, but it would be a pity other- 
wise, I think.” 

A sudden suspicion darted into Sam’s mind, to be 
dismissed as unworthy the moment after. Mrs. 
Weir had admitted she feared this man; surely she 
was not letting things slide under the influence of 
that fear? 

Then he sighed heavily. 

“I wonder what we ought to do?” he said. 

The next moment he was seized by the shoulder 
very sharply. 


54 


OUR WIDOW. 


“I’m tired of the makeweight,” whispered she. 
“Come and amuse me; I’m sure Mrs. Weir looks as 
if you’d bored her long enough!” 

“It’s very hard,” said Mrs. Weir with a pretended 
sigh, “that we should be parted thus! But you 
may go, Mr. Eitchie, and we’ll take up our conversa- 
tion at the interesting point it had just reached— next 
time!” 

Molly laughed rather half-heartedly, as she took 
Sam off to the piano. He had a fairly good voice 
and it was a weakness of his to like to sing. Only 
on occasions of rare graciousness, however, did Molly 
offer to play his accompaniments. 

“You might try that pretty thing of Tosti’s,” said 
she. “We’ll do it very softly, so that perhaps papa 
won’t hear. And very slow, and then he’ll think it’s 
sacred music if he does !” 

And, not in the least to the disturbance of the talk- 
ers in the other room, now reinforced by two or three 
more of “ Edgar’s friends, ” he began to sing. At the 
end of the very first verse, Molly, in an ominous 
voice, asked a question : 

“What were you and Mrs. Weir talking about?” 

“Oh, different things. I forget what.” 

“No, you don’t. You were talking about me.” 

“You were mentioned, I believe.” 

“Not ‘mentioned,’ but talked about,” reiterated 
Molly fiercely. “Now I warn you that I won’t be 
talked about. Or— if I am— ’’and she threw him a 
glance of real menace, “ if I am, I’ll give you all some- 
thing to talk about!” 

“My dear child,” said he gently, “you will never 


OUR WIDOW. 


55 


be talked about* by any party of which I am one, ex- 
cept in terms which any girl might be pleased to 
hear.” 

The tenderness in his tone, as well as the words 
themselves, brought a lump suddenly into Molly’s 
throat. 

She let her fingers drop from the keys, and an- 
swered in a husky voice : 

“ Sam, shut up ! I’m not good enough — for you — 
for you to trouble about! And — and” — she went on 
quickly, before he could get a word in, “I’m not 
going to try to be any better. So it’s no use my 
holding out hopes. Your sisters are right, Sam; 
you* re only wasting your time coming here. And I 
want you — I want you — not to come any more. 
You’ll only hear something that you won’t like, soon, 
if you do. Now I’ve warned you!” 

“Good heavens! child, what do you mean?” cried 
Sam in a panic. 

“ I can’t tell you now. But — but ” 

She was very much agitated. Sam bent over her, 
determined to get an answer. 

But at that moment, the young people in the next 
room, becoming conscious that the music which had 
supplied a pleasant fillip to the conversation had 
ceased, began to ask impertinent questions. One of 
them jumped up and came toward the piano. Molly, 
angry at being caught red-eyed, slipped out of the 
room. 

And she did not come back. 

Mrs. Weir, noticing this, presently broke off the 
talk in which she was engaged, and announced her 


56 


OUR WIDOW . 


intention of going to evening service. There was a 
little surprise in one or of the two faces, but Bab, as 
usual, looked demurely intelligent. 

“She’s gone to look after Molly, you bet!” she re- 
marked aside to Sam. 

Bab was right. Divining Molly’s intention, Mrs. 
Weir put on a bonnet very quickly, slipped out of the 
house, and caught Molly, who was armed with a huge 
“ church service, ” at the corner of the street. 

“I’m going to church,” said Molly shortly. 

“ So am I, dear. Let me go with you, and you can 
let me look over your book,” said Mrs. Weir. 

Now this amounted to a confession of the im- 
promptu nature of her devotion ; and Molly frowned. 
There was no help for it, however ; and the girl was 
forced to make the best of it, and to enter the church 
with Mrs. Weir. She stole a look round her at the 
first opportunity, and found the person of whom she 
was in search with his eyes fixed intently on Mrs. 
Weir. 

It was real jealousy, and not the sham emotion she 
had affected in the case of poor Sam, which filled the 
girl’s passionate heart as she noticed this. One thing 
more she saw also: Mrs. Weir, although she never 
once appeared to look round, was conscious of the 
gaze of the stranger and uneasy under it. 

When service was over, and the two ladies came 
out together, Molly tried hard to escape from her 
companion in the crowd, if only for a moment. But 
Mrs. Weir was too clever for her. All the satisfac- 
tion Molly had was, in passing out through the porch, 
to meet the eyes of a middle-aged man, of medium 


OUR WIDOW . 


57 


height and slight build, with a deeply furrowed face 
and carefully dyed mustache, and to exchange with 
him a glance and a frown of warning. 

Mrs. Weir chatted amicably on the way home, but 
Molly was sullen and silent. Bushing upstairs on 
reaching home, the girl burst into the drawing-room, 
and flung her prayer-book, in a violent passion, at 
Sam’s head. 

“ You put her up to it. I know you did!” cried 
she, half-suffocated with rage, and quite indifferent as 
to the comments of the assembled company, who 
were, however, too much used to Molly’s tempestuous 
ways to be much impressed by this outbreak. 
“Well, you will see what you will get by it!” 

And, without another word to anybody, she flung 
herself out of the room, and appeared no more that 
evening. 

On his way home that night, Sam, in the gloomiest 
of humors, was accosted by a man whom he did not 
know, but whom he recognized, by the description he 
had received from Bab, as Sir Walter Hay. 

“I beg your pardon for stopping you,” said the 
stranger in a perfectly courteous and well-bred tone : 
“ You are Mr. Kitchie, I know, a dear friend of my 
little friend, Molly Frewen. Let me introduce myself, 
though I dare say you know who I am — Sir Walter 
Hay.” 

“I have heard, Sir Walter, that Mr. Frewen does 
not allow you to visit at his house. Then how can 
his daughter be your friend?” said Sam stiffly . 

“These things arrange themselves,” answered Sir 
Walter carelessly. “You had better ask Miss Molly 


58 


OUR WIDOW. 


about it. I am quite in the lady’s hands. If she 
wishes to give up my acquaintance — ” Sam moved 
impatiently. “ However, that was not what I wanted 
to speak to you about. Mr. Frewen is straining at a 
very small gnat, and swallowing an extra-sized camel. 
He forbids me the house, and allows a person who 
calls herself Mrs. Weir to reside under the same roof 
with his daughters!” 

“ Well?” said Sam, assuring more ease than he felt. 

“ Well, if Mrs. Weir is the lady I saw at church 
with Molly this evening, I can only hope, for Mr. 
Frewen’ s sake, that her future may be — shall I say — 
less checkered — than her past. And the dear girls — 
they like excitement, don’t they? Well, sooner or 
later, if the connection goes on, they will get it!” 

And raising his hat in the same easy, slightly 
amused manner, Sir Walter walked quietly away. 


CHAPTER YII. 


Twenty times a day, with the utmost regularity, 
Sam Ritchie called himself a fool for caring so much 
about a girl who didn’t care for him. And after each 
of these occasions he fell into a state of abject peni- 
tence or of indignation with himself; and, recalling 
some pretty word or bright glance of Molly’s, he told 
himself that no man with a heart in him could be ex- 
pected to resist such charms. 

He was under her displeasure since the Sunday 
night when she had just missed his head with her 
brass-bound church service ; and on the evenings when 
he appeared at Cirencester Terrace he had to content 
himself with talking to Mrs. Weir, and to Tryphena 
and Bab. Molly would not so much as look in his 
direction. 

Although he pretended not to mind, and chatted 
away to the other ladies as if nothing had happened, 
Sam’s heart was sore smitten by this treatment, so 
that at last he stayed away from the house altogether, 
and spent his evenings with his sisters and younger 
brothers at Onslow Square. 

Rhoda and Amy, the two eldest, were rather un- 
interesting girls, who gave themselves airs on the 
strength of being “ superior” and well informed, but 
who could never disguise their jealousy of other girls 
who were not. 


59 


60 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Dear me! Are we to have you at home again to- 
night, Sam?” asked Ehoda at the breakfast-table with 
something like a sneer, when her brother had prom- 
ised to take Amy to a lecture at the South Kensing- 
ton. “What is the meaning of it?” 

“ Don’t tease him about it, pray. But be thankful 
when he does stay at home to look after his sisters a 
little!” interposed Mrs. Bitchie, who was a typical 
specimen of the over-fed, over-dressed London mother, 
with one calculating eye fixed on her account-book 
and the other on her marriageable daughters, in both 
cases trying to get the biggest return for the smallest 
possible outlay. 

“Oh, I’m sure we are duly grateful,” retorted 
Rhoda. “ Only we are naturally anxious to know the 
reason for this unusual honor.” 

“You have had a quarrel with them, I suppose!” 
suggested Amy, in a less disagreeable tone than her 
sister, however. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you can see in those 
girls, Sam,” went on Rhoda. “They’re dreadfully 
fast and vulgar and slangy, and they know nothing 
whatever on any subject, and care for nothing, but 
dress and promiscuous flirtation.” 

“ That’s not exactly correct, as of course you know,” 
answered Sam quietly. He would have preferred to 
say nothing at all, but the last words stung him 
to speech, as indeed they were intended to do. 
“ The Erewen girls are not faultless, and they don’t 
pretend to be. But they don’t flirt more than other 
girls, and I have never heard them run down other 
people.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


61 


“ Their father is in a very good position,” observed 
Mrs. Ritchie. 

“They don’t live in very great style,” put in 
Rhoda. “Don’t even keep a carriage.” 

“They’re all the better off on that account,” sud- 
denly interposed Mr. Ritchie, who was a hard-work- 
ing, good-natured City man, bound to the car of an 
ostentation which he loathed. “I wish T were as 
well off as old Frewen must be. ‘Frewen & Smee’ 
are one of the best-known firms in the city, and 
they have a splendid business. They’re trustees for 
Lord Cloone, and a dozen other men in the same posi- 
tion.” 

“Lord Cloone!” cried Amy with interest. “The 
man who has been out shooting so many tigers and 
things? There’s all about it in The Morning Post.” 
And she took up that paper from where it was lying, 
near her mother’s plate. “He’s been writing a book 
about his adventures, and he’s just going to start on 
his way back to England.” 

Everybody looked interested in this information, 
especially the ladies. Lord Cloone was one of the 
wealthy young men among whom it is the fashion to 
take long journeys to far continents in search of 
big game ; and some of his exploits had got into the 
papers and been talked about. 

“ Ah, he’ll be on view at Cirencester Terrace, then, 
when he comes back, depend upon it! And then 
you’ll have more of your brother’s society, my dears,” 
went on Mr. Ritchie banteringly. “For Sam’s nose, 
as well as the noses of all the other young men who 
flock round those girls — very nice girls they are too ! 


62 


OUR WIDOW . 


— like flies round a honey -pot, will be put out of joint 
when my Lord Viscount comes along!” 

A silence fell upon the group. For a few minutes 
every one went on eating without speaking. It was 
plain that there had come a revulsion of feeling in 
favor of Cirencester Terrace, and that the ladies 
were wondering how gracefully to recede from their 
former position, and to open the way for an early 
call. 

Sam was disgusted. He knew what money and 
position meant as well as anybody, and despised 
neither of them, any more than any other young Lon- 
doner. But he was satiated with this eternal talk 
about them ; with this everlasting worship at the same 
dingy shrine. He changed his mind about the lec- 
ture, which Amy seemed to have forgotten, and com- 
pounding with her for a promise of a book she wanted, 
said he had remembered an appointment. 

When he and his father had left the house for the 
city, mother and daughters exchanged glances. 

“Sam isn’t so simple as he pretends, after all!” 
remarked Bhoda. 

“But I really don’t think it’s because their father’s 
rich that he likes those girls,” said Amy. 

Mrs. Bitchie broke in hastily. 

“ Whatever his reasons are, you had much better 
leave him to do as he likes. They are quite the right 
sort of people to know, these Frewens. And I shall 
take one of you girls to call there next week.” 

“They have a nice little place on the river,” ob- 
served Bhoda thoughtfully. “ I wonder whether Lord 
Cloone will be staying there with them this season!” 


OUR WIDOW. 


63 


Sam’s imaginary appointment was not with the 
Frewens, but it was not unconnected with those wil- 
ful young women. 

This talk about Lord Cloone had brought into his 
mind the recollection that Molly and Bab and Try- 
phena had certain advantages, of which they them- 
selves thought little, but which would have sent them 
up with a spring and a bound in the estimation of the 
ladies of his own household. 

They were distantly related, on the mother’s side, 
to more than one titled family. And their great 
aunt, the Honorable Agatha Melbury, was on the 
very best terms with them. 

It had flashed into his mind that Miss Melbury 
would be a very proper person to consult upon this 
very awkward matter of Mrs. Weir and Sir Walter 
Hay’s warnings, on the one hand, and of Mrs. Weir’s 
warnings concerning Sir Walter on the other. So, as 
he was always well received by Miss Melbury, who 
was what is known as a “ character,” he presented 
himself at her house in Wilton Place that afternoon a 
few minutes after five o’clock. 

Miss Melbury was “ At home,” and he found her 
pretty drawing-room, with its delicious Eighteenth 
Century atmosphere of pot-pourri and brocade, sub- 
dued manners and softly uttered scandal, a curious 
change from his home on the one hand, and Cirences- 
ter Terrace on the other. 

He had to make his way, tortuously, between and 
around groups of faded, quiet ladies, some with 
equally quiet daughters beside them, some with a 
courteous, silver-haired gentleman in attendance. 


64 


OUR WIDOW. 


But the ladies, especially the old ladies, predominated, 
and gave the tone to the whole. 

And at the end of his journey he came to Miss 
Melbury herself, a thin, withered old lady, with 
hooked features and gray eyes of preternatural 
shrewdness, sitting in state in an armchair of ancient 
fashion, over the subdued brocade of which her 
petunia velvet and lace yellow with age hung in well- 
studied folds. 

A regal old lady this, holding a court one day in 
each week with some effect. The ladies who were 
nearest sank into insignificance beside her, although 
one was a duchess. Miss Melbury seemed to absorb 
all the dignity within reach of her, and to leave noth- 
ing for her immediate neighbors. 

She raised a gold, square-framed eyeglass to in- 
spect the new-comer, and having recognized him as 
one of her fold, held out a thin yellow hand in a man- 
ner which would have made a stranger want to kneel. 

And then, surprise of surprises! she spoke, and 
revealed the fact that she combined the manners of 
the Eighteenth Century with the speech of the end of 
the Nineteenth. 

“ You will find this rather ‘slow,’ I am afraid, Mr. 
Eitchie. Tea with a lot of dowagers!” 

“I don’t think you’ll have to set me down as too 
‘fast’ for you,” said Sam, as he took the chair beside 
her to which she graciously invited him. 

“And what have you got to tell me? You need 
not waste your time trying to persuade me that it was 
the pleasure of seeing a withered old woman that 
brought you!” she said, fixing upon him those pene- 


OUR WIDOW. 


65 


trating eyes which it was difficult to believe were 
short-sighted. 

Sam came straight to the point. 

“ You are too clever, Miss Melbury. You ought to 
give one time for a decent preamble.” 

“I will imagine the decent preamble.” 

“Well, then, I wanted to speak to you about those 
girls.” 

“Ah? My nieces! Why were they not young 
men? What spirited fellows they would have made! 
Instead of being, as they are, the despair of all their 
friends!” 

“They are charming girls though, Miss Melbury!” 

“ They are. I see very little of them, of course, 
much less than you do. They find my dowager after- 
noons dull, and they have the honesty to stay away. 
I respect them for it. I respect all girls without 
mothers — until they go wrong, as they invariably do. 
They are so frank.” 

Sam knew that the sharp-tongued old lady was bet- 
ter than her words, but that it was her fancy not to 
let this be suspected. So he laughed gently in appre- 
ciation of her wit, although he did not like the tone 
of it. 

“Mr. Frewen has taken a very strange step. I 
suppose you have heard of it?” 

“Do you mean the widow?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I think Mr. Frewen has taken many worse 
steps than that. I rather like her.” 

“ You have seen her then?” 

“ Yes. She has evidently been used to decent peo- 
5 


66 


OUR WIDOW . 


pie. And think what a relief she is after that terri- 
ble Eoscoe person! I was always in terror lest Mr. 
Frewen should marry her. She played upon his love 
of conventionality and outward propriety, while she 
neglected her duties to the girls all the time.” 

“ Did you ever suggest to him ” 

“ Never. I never do. And so you don’t like the 
widow?” 

“ I like her very much, but ” 

“ There is always a ‘but’ with a widow of unknown 
antecedents. Why trouble one’s self about it? Mr. 
Frewen has chosen to take her under his roof : she 
conducts herself with immaculate propriety, even 
doing her best for the girls — which is really almost 
Quixotic. What can you do but take her as she is, 
and be thankful?” 

However, Sam insisted upon confiding to her the 
warning which had been given him by Sir Walter 
Hay. At the mention of this man’s name Miss Mel- 
bury shivered. 

“How can you take the word of a person like 
that?” she said. “ He is a mauvais sujet of the first 
water. Having run through his property in every 
sort of discreditable way, he gains a dishonest living 
by any sort of shady business he can find : company- 
promoting in its lowest form, touting for outside 
stockbrokers, anything. He has a grudge against 
Mr. Frewen, who got him prosecuted some years ago 
in connection with some bogus company or other. 
He would say anything, do anything, to bring dis- 
comfort into his household, I have no doubt.” 

Sam listened in dismay. The transactions of which 


OUR WIDOW. 


67 


Miss Melbury spoke had taken place years before, 
when he was a small boy. And he had never heard 
of them, nor specifically of the other charges now 
brought against the impecunious baronet. 

“Then, Miss Melbury,” said he firmly, “you must 
speak to Molly. For she is meeting this man on the 
sly.” 

Miss Melbury sat back in her chair, in despair. 
Then she sat up again. 

“I shall not speak to her,” she said crossly. “I 
am not going to make myself ridiculous by wrangling 
with that child. But I will, if you like, speak to 
Mrs. Weir. It is you who must speak to Molly.” 

“ But what can I say?” 

“Tell her she must marry you.” 

“It’s so easy to say that, Miss Melbury! But she 
won’t. However, I’ll try. She threw a book at my 
head last Sunday. I might put it to her that that 
would be an acceptable way of making amends?” 

“A very good idea. Now, you may go. I see you 
are dying to put it in practice. And tell the widow 
she may call. Any evening except Wednesday. I 
must get her to caution those girls against the way 
they dress. Their clothes are always so shockingly 
becoming that they look like the better class of shop- 
girls! Good-by. Give the girls my love.” 

And he was dismissed. 


0 


CHAPTER VIII. 

When Sam arrived at Cirencester Terrace it was 
half-past six, and therefore very near the Erewens’ 
usual dinner hour. However, he was too intimate a 
friend to trouble his head about that. Armed with 
the fresh intelligence he had about her dangerous 
acquaintance, he felt that he must speak to Molly at 
once. If he could catch her for a minute in the 
drawing-room when she came down dressed for dinner, 
he felt that he could compress what he had to say into 
a very few words, and that if he came upon her un- 
expectedly he should have a better chance of being 
listened to than if she had time to put on a special 
manner for him. 

As soon as the door was opened, however, he saw 
by the servant’s face that something was wrong. 

Johns was an ancient institution, on intimate terms 
with all the old friends of the family. 

“Sad news this, sir; have you heard?” said he, in 
a low voice, as he closed the door with extra gentle- 
ness. 

“No. What is it?” 

“ My master, sir, was brought home in a cab about 
half an hour ago, by one of the clerks.” 

"Not ” 

Sam’s face said the rest. 

“Oh, no, sir, no. But very ill, very ill indeed, 
68 


OUR WIDOW. 


69 


We had almost to carry him in. He’s in the study 
now, sir.” And the man glanced along the hall to- 
ward a door at the end. “ He chose to be taken in 
there. And the worst of it is, he’s so touchy about it, 
he won’t let us send for a doctor.” 

“Oh, but that’s nonsense! He must have one,” 
said Sam. And seizing his hat again, he turned and 
was about to rush out of the house when Johns re- 
spectfully but firmly interposed, laying his hand upon 
the door. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, but I think you’d better 
not, until he allows it. Miss Koscoe wanted to, when 
he first came in, and she fussed and insisted. But 
Mr. Frewen was in such a way about it that Mrs. 
Weir said we’d better wait a bit. And what she says, 
sir, it mostly seems best to do,” ended the man with 
conviction. 

Sam gave way, and went upstairs to the drawing- 
room. He was puzzled. When a man is taken ill 
suddenly, it certainly strikes one as the proper thing 
to send for a doctor, whatever the opinion of the 
patient himself may be on the subject. He leaned 
over the banisters. 

“ Johns!” 

The man came softly up to him. 

“Is it paralysis, do you think?” 

Johns hesitated. 

“I really don’t rightly know what it is, sir. It 
seems a — a peculiar sort of a thing ! I suppose we 
shall know more about it presently, sir.” 

And, seeing that the gentleman had nothing more 
to say to him, Johns discreetly withdrew. 


70 


OUR WIDOW. 


Even before he opened the door of the drawing- 
room, Sam heard loud sobs and also expressions of in- 
dignation and complaint in a voice which he recognized 
as Miss Roscoe’ s. On entering the room he found the 
governess pacing up and down, pressing her hand- 
kerchief to her eyes, and declaring that she never, no 
never, in all her life had been so treated before ! 

Bab, in a low-necked pale pink dress, was standing 
by one of the windows, looking white and rather 
frightened. Tryphena, also in evening dress, which 
in her case was of cream-colored muslin, was sitting 
sulkily in a chair. Miss Roscoe literally flew at him 
as he entered. 

“Oh, Mr. Ritchie, that woman! What do you 
think? A nice person poor Mr. Ere wen has been 
harboring under his roof! A nice person, to es- 
trange him from all his daughters and his oldest 
friends!” 

Tryphena broke in sharply, in her strident, boister- 
ous tones : 

“ Rubbish ! Don’t listen to her, Sam. Papa’s been 
taken ill, and he sent for Mrs. Weir; that’s all the 
story. And why shouldn’t he? That’s what I want 
to know!” 

“Tryphena, I’m surprised at you!” snapped Miss 
Roscoe, who was easily surprised. “ What right has 
she to be with your dear papa, when she hasn’t been 
in the house a month, while I ” 

Tryphena laughed mockingly. 

“ He has a right to send for whom he likes. We 
don’t complain that he didn’t want to see us. Why 
should you mind that he didn’t want to see you?” 


OUR WIDOW ; 


n 


“ Well, if yon don’t object to having your father’s af- 
fection stolen away from yon by an interloper, I object 
for yon !” sobbed Miss Roscoe with unappreciated mag- 
nanimity. “ And I’m sure yon, Mr. Ritchie, will agree 
with me that it’s not natural or right that she should 
be placed before any of ns, this — this Mrs. Weir!” 

And from the scornful emphasis which she placed 
upon the name one would have thought that it was a 
hall-mark of evil. 

“It can’t be denied that he has a right to send for 
whom he likes,” suggested Sam mildly. “ I dare say, 
being ill, he feels it better and more proper to see a 
married lady, and an older woman than any of you.” 

He thought this was a very neat way out of the diffi- 
culty, but Miss Roscoe sniffed, and ejaculated “ married 
woman indeed ! ’ ’ and turned her back upon the despic- 
able man who had so evidently gone over to the enemy. 

“I dare say it’s all nothing. Don’t you think so, 
Sam?” asked Bab anxiously. “Papa’s never ill, you 
know!” 

Sam did not quite see the strength of this argument, 
but he said he hoped it would prove to be nothing 
serious. 

“Mrs. Weir was going to take us to the Hay- 
market,” said Tryphena. “But now I suppose we 
can’t go!” 

“Perhaps she’ll let me take you,” suggested Sam, 
who thought that if he did not go with them, some- 
body else would. “And where’s Molly?” 

“Oh, she’s gone to tea with Aunt Agatha, and will 
join us at the theatre,” said Bab. 

Now Sam knew very well that Molly had not gone 


72 


OUR WIDOW . 


“ to tea with Aunt Agatha, ” and his face fell. Bab 
took pity on him, and slipped her arm affectionately 
into his, as she dragged him up the back drawing- 
room, as far as possible out of hearing of Miss Ros- 
coe’s ostentatious grief. 

“I wouldn’t mind, if I were you, Sam,” she said. 
“ Molly herself says you’re too good for her, and I 
think she’s right.” 

“ Good heavens, child ! what do you mean?” 

Bab glanced up at him quickly, and was evidently 
sorry she had said so much. 

“Oh, oh, I only mean,” stammered she. “But 
she’ll tell you herself to-night. She really promised 
to meet us at the theatre to-night.” 

“ But where has she gone to? I know she isn’t at 
Miss Melbury’s, for I’ve just come from there myself. 
And it’s her day, and Molly would never go there 
when all those old ladies are about.” 

But Bab, with a little guilty blush, merely observed 
that she could only tell where Molly said she was 
going, and not where she went to, and crossed over to 
Tryphena. 

Sam said he had better go home to dress, if he was 
to take them to the theatre, and he left the room. 
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he came sud- 
denly face to face with Mrs. Weir, who had just come 
out from the study. 

He was shocked to see that she was in a state of 
great agitation, and that even the unexpected meeting 
with himself set her trembling violently. 

“What is it?” asked he in alarm. “Do tell me 
the truth. Is Mr. Frewen seriously ill?” 


OUR WIDOW ; 


73 


He heard, as he spoke, sounds as of some person 
moving quickly about in the room she had just left. 
And as his eyes involuntarily travelled in that direc- 
tion, she moved rapidly into such a position as to block 
the way toward that apartment. 

“ He is certainly ill, ” she answered. And her voice 
was hardly under complete control. “But I really 
think he is frightening himself more than he need do. 
A few days’ rest and quiet are, I am pretty sure, all 
he wants to make him all right again.” 

“But,” said Sam, very much puzzled by the con- 
trast between her agitated manner and look and her 
reassuring words : “ Surely he ought to see his doctor? 
Couldn’t you persuade him?” 

“I have tried,” she answered quickly. “But it is 
of no use. He is exceedingly touchy on the subject!” 

“Do you think he would see me? Perhaps I could 
persuade him.” 

“I will ask him.” 

She went back into the study, the door of which 
she closed behind her so rapidly and so neatly that 
Sam was unable to get a glimpse of what was going 
on inside. In a very few minutes she came out again. 

“ It is of no use. He won’t see anybody, even you. 
I think you had better not try.” As, in spite of 
himself, Sam looked doubtful and suspicious, Mrs. 
Weir’s tone suddenly changed. “I hope you don’t 
suspect that I am not doing what is best,” she said 
with so much directness, so much womanly earnest- 
ness, that he was abashed, and felt his doubts give 
way against his judgment. “ If you only knew what 
a difficult task I have undertaken, you would do what 


?4 OUR WIDOW . 

you could to help me, and — you would not look at me 
like that!” 

“If there is anything I can do, I will,” said he 
gently. 

“Thank you.” To complete her conquest on his 
good-nature, Sam saw that there were tears, undoubt- 
edly real ones, in her eyes. “ The girls. You can 
help me with them. You must own that I have kept 
my promise to try and look after them.” 

“You have indeed,” said Sam heartily. 

“Take them to the theatre this evening. They 
won’t go with Miss Koscoe.” 

“I have already undertaken that.” 

“ Thank you. That is just like you. Good-by. I 
must go back to my patient.” 

And, giving him her hand with a kind look which 
Sam fully appreciated, she left him and returned to 
the study. 

Still, when one got outside and considered the 
matter in cold blood, it really was a very mysterious 
illness, this of Mr. Frewen’s. 


CHAPTER IX. 


When Sam returned to Cirencester Terrace, an 
hour later, driving up in a hansom, Bab and Try- 
phena, their pretty little fair faces peeping out from 
a nest of white goat fur, which formed the trimming of 
the short white silk sling capes they wore over their 
light frocks, were peeping anxiously out of the dining- 
room window. 

Before the hansom could stop they were out on the 
doorstep; and by the time Sam jumped out he found 
himself surrounded by fluttering skirts, and with 
two young voices chattering vociferously in his ears. 

“ You have been a long time! I don’t see what a 
man has to do to make him so long, when he has no 
hair!” cried Try phena. 

But Sam repelled this charge indignantly. 

“What do you mean, no hair?” he cried, as he 
passed his hand caressingly over the back of his 
smooth head. “I’ve got as much hair as any other 
man!” 

“Man! Yes!” retorted Tryphena scornfully. 
“But you haven’t got any to do up. It’s just a dab 
with a brush, and it’s done. Unless you curl it, as 
some of you do. I know Bradley does!” added she 
mischievously. 

But Bab, who had been adding a quiet undercurrent 
75 


76 


OUR WIDOW. 


to her sister’s words, refused to be irritated by this 
remark. 

“It looks very nice, however he does it,” she re- 
plied calmly. 

But the faint pink flush which came into her white 
face showed that she could not hear any reference to 
Bradley quite unmoved. The truth was, that Bradley 
Ingledew and Bab had been drifting rather fast lately 
toward a state of emotion which one of the two, at 
any rate, would have liked to have strength to avoid. 

“ How are we going to sit?” she asked, with some 
anxiety, “ three in a hansom is always a squash ; and 
when one’s dressed ” 

“Well, what on earth was I to do?” asked Sam 
with bland irritation. “ You know very well that if 
I’d brought up a four-wheeler ” 

There was a subdued scream of horror from both 
girls. 

“But I can go on an omnibus, if you like. As 
you’ve got a box, you can go straight in, and you 
won’t have to wait for me long.” 

“Omnibus! Bubbish! Come along!” said Bab 
laconically. “I’ll get in first; then you, Sam; and 
little Tryphena must squeeze herself in any way she 
can.” 

And so “little Tryphena,” who was decidedly the 
finest woman in the family, had to be content with 
the uncomfortable third place on the knees of the 
others, a position which, however, she occupied with 
great good humor and with no disastrous results to 
her fresh muslin. 

“How jolly!” sighed Bab when they had started, 


OUR WIDOW. 77 

“ to be coining with you, Sam, instead of with Mrs. 
Weir! She’s begun to shadow us lately!” 

“ She must have hard work to shadow all three of 
you !” replied Sam drily. “ Considering that it’s very 
difficult to find two of you together, and that you’re 
all always up to some mischief or other!” 

“I’m never in mischief,” said Bab indignantly. 
“I just pretend things to annoy Mrs. W.” 

“Then it’s very ungrateful of you,” cried Try- 
phena stoutly, “for she is most awfully good to us, 
and suggests everything so sweetly and nicely that 
it’s quite a pleasure to please her. Not a bit like 
that horrid old Roscoe. I am so glad papa paid her 
out by sending for Mrs. Weir!” 

“I didn’t say she was as bad as Miss Roscoe,” said 
Bab indulgently. “ Roscoe is unique. Nature made 
her, was shocked, and broke the mould.” 

“ You don’t like Mrs. Weir because she saw you 
kissing Bradley in the conservatory and came in and 
stopped you,” cried Tryphena in her loud terrible 
“younger sister” voice. 

Bab retorted with much indignation, which, how- 
ever, she did not suffer to make her loud. 

“It’s no business of Mrs. Weir’s to interfere with 
me,” she said. “What right had she to say who I 
may speak to and who I may not?” 

“Oh, you might speak to anybody,” retorted Try- 
phena, “ I dare say. But kissing is a different thing, 
isn’t it, Sam?” 

“One doesn’t kiss every one one speaks to, cer- 
tainly,” said Sam. 

“But what reason can she have for objecting to 


78 


OUR WIDOW. 


Bradley Ingledew?” said Bab with considerable irri- 
tation in her tone. “How can any one say he isn’t 
by far the nicest man that comes to our house?” 

“Thank you/’ moaned Sam with resignation. 

“Well, except you, Sam, of course except you. 
And even you’ve spoilt yourself rather by being so 
ridiculously fond of Molly!” 

“Perhaps he can’t help that, poor fellow!” said 
Tryphena with sympathy. 

Sam laughed rather ruefully. 

“It’s very good of you, girls, to take my part and 
try to spare my feelings, and the rest of it. But I’d 
rather be left altogether out of the question. Some 
of your soothing little speeches have an unconscious 
sting.” 

But he had better have held his tongue. Tryphena 
turned round in her boisterous manner, and chucked 
him under the chin. 

“Did it sting its little Sammy?” she cried with 
exuberant hilarity. “Well, then, it begs its little 
pardon, and won’t do so any more. And Molly’s 
a fool not to like you, Sam. And I can’t help think- 
ing you’re rather a fool to like Molly. For nobody 
of any sense would care about that horrid, dried-up, 
dyed-up Sir Walter, when ” 

“Be quiet, Tryphena,” cried Bab sharply, as she 
gave her sister a pinch. She had more discrimina- 
tion than her younger sister, and she saw that each 
word cut poor old Sam like a knife. “We were talk- 
ing about Bradley.” 

“And I think you’d better not talk so much about 
him,” retorted the irrepressible one, “I don’t be- 


OUR WIDOW. 


79 


lieve he cares about you so much as you think, Bab, ” 
she went on with admirable tact, “ or why should he 
sometimes stay away for a week at a time, as you 
know he does, after making all sorts of promises to 
come, too?” 

“ Well, then, he comes every day for a week at a 
time,” said Bab, with that outward calmness which 
was her strong point of difference from her sisters. 
“ It doesn’t do to come so often, with so many spying 
eyes about?” 

“But where’s the harm of the spying eyes, if 
you’re just going to be engaged and married in the regu- 
lar way?” retorted Tryphena, speaking more loudly 
than ever in the consciousness of having made a hit. 

“Oh, nonsense, we needn’t talk about that,” said 
Bab hastily. “ I think it’ s quite horrid, that talk of 
engagements and marriages just because two people 
like to talk to each other, or to see each other, and 
one happens to be a man and the other a woman. 
Perfectly disgusting, I call it.” 

“Perfectly disgusting, other people call it, when 
they don’t want to get married!” retorted Tryphena, 
unsubdued. 

Whereupon Bab, annoyed to find that Sam was 
secretly amused by her sister’s repartees, assumed an 
aggressive elder-sisterly manner. 

“My dear child, you don’t know what you’re 
talking about!” she said superbly, w 7 ith a tone which 
she felt ought to end the discussion. 

But it didn’t. 

“ Oh, don’t I? Why, to be sister to you and Molly 
is a liberal education!” 


80 


OUR WIDOW. 


But at this point Sam’s powers of self-control broke 
down, and he was felt to indulge in a smothered 
laugh. This encouraged Tryphena in her evil 
course. 

“She’s going down with him on his house-boat, 
Sam, and won’t she get herself talked about? We’ve 
all heard of the lively times they have on those bach- 
elor house-boats!” 

Sam had certainly heard tales told of this particular 
house-boat, and he grew suddenly grave enough. 

“I say, Bab, you’d better not do that,” he said 
with good-humored expostulation. “ You never 
know who’s going to be there. They do get a 
rackety crew up there on Sundays, I know, actors 
and actresses and — and — lots of people your father 
wouldn’t care about your meeting.” 

But Bab dashed in at the weak spot. 

And pray, where’s the harm of being an actor or 
actress? I’m ashamed of you, Sam; I didn’t think 
you were so narrow-minded!” she cried with a burst 
of virtuous indignation. “Everybody knows that 
actresses are hard-working women who support aged 
fathers and mothers and swarms of crippled brothers 
and sisters. It’s always being impressed upon us in 
the papers. And the people who look down upon 
them are hypocritical Pharisees, who sand their sugar 
all the week and never miss church on Sundays !” 

Sam had again some difficulty in repressing the 
amusement he felt at this apt travesty of the New 
anti-Puritanism, but he conquered himself, and replied 
with due gravity: 

But that sort of actress doesn’t spend her money 


OUR WIDOW. 


€1 


in smart frocks to go on the river in. You know 
that, Miss Pert, as well as I do.” 

"Well,” replied Bab composedly. "Perhaps not. 
But I should like to investigate for myself. If I see 
these people with my own eyes, I might, by a few 
judicious questions, get more real truth on this inter- 
esting subject than I could from all the papers.” 

"I dare say you could,” said Sam demurely. 
"But I think, if you must try you had better let 
Mrs. Weir go with you.” 

"I think she’s too dangerous,” said Bab. "And 
her nice frocks might set the poor, hard-working 
actresses wishing they could dress as well!” 

There was no getting the best in argument of this 
sort with Bab ; and Sam felt glad that the bustle of 
Piccadilly now began to distract the girl’s attention 
from himself and his crotchets. 

As they got out of the hansom at the theatre portico 
Tryphena asked her sister : 

" Is Bradley coming?” 

" You know he isn’t,” answered Bab shortly. " He 
doesn’t know we’re coming. You must know,” she 
went on, turning to Sam with a grievance, " that Mrs. 
Weir didn’t tell us she’d got the box till a couple of 
hours ago, just so that we couldn’t make any appoint- 
ments. Grandmotherly again!” 

" I thought you might have wired, ” said Tryphena. 

"I didn’t know where to wire to, whether to the 
city or his chambers. It was such an awkward time.” 

But Sam shrewdly suspected that Bab had not been 
eager for a tete-a-tete which must have been held 
under Mrs. Weir’s eyes at such close quarters as a 
6 


82 


OUR WIDOW. 


box necessitated. For Bab was falling very much in 
love, and she did not want Mrs. Weir, of all people, 
with her shrewd eyes, to know too much. 

Sam was looking out for Molly, who was to have 
been waiting at the entrance. But he saw at the 
first peep inside the door that the little figure that 
set his heart beating so fast was not there. He could 
not conceal his disappointment, his anxiety. And 
the two girls exchanged glances full of sly amusement 
mingled with real pity. 

“ Will you take us in, Sam, and come and wait for 
her here?” suggested Tryphena. 

But Bab said : 

“That would be silly. Molly knows her way 
about, and she knows the number of the box. She 
will find her way in when she comes, without keeping 
Sam standing about here.” 

Sam looked at her shrewdly. Her demure little 
white face told him little, but his suspicion was 
aroused. 

“You don’t expect her to come at all?” said he 
quickly. 

“Well, she told me she was coming, but — I 
shouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t.” 

Sam said nothing ; but he turned and walked into 
the corridor with them with a look on his face which 
made the tender-hearted Tryphena wince. 

“Never mind, Sam,” she whispered, putting her 
hand through his arm with a jerk. “We’ll be very 
kind to you, Bab and I. And don’t be afraid. 
Molly’s all right. She can take care of herself as 
well as anybody.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


83 


But poor Sam could not take this comfort to his 
heart. 

They had a nice, roomy box, and Bab had just 
placed herself where her pretty person and dainty 
frock could be seen to the best advantage, when both 
her companions were startled by a change which sud- 
denly came over her face, and by a smothered cry, 
like a sob, which broke from her lips at the same 
moment. Bab’s complexion was naturally so pale 
that her cheeks hardly grew whiter ; but the brilliant 
red color left her lips, and her eyes remained fixed 
on a box at the opposite side of the house. 

Following the direction of her eyes, both Sam and 
Tryphena saw that the object which had arrested 
Bab’s attention was a woman, a little fair, plump 
woman, with insignificant features which could 
scarcely be called pretty, who was dressed all in 
black, with diamonds in her hair and dress. 

Sam did not know the face, but Tryphena did. 

“ Why,” she said, in a whisper, addressed to both 
of her companions, “it’s the woman whose portrait 
we found in Edgar’s room, isn’t it? With ‘To dar- 
ling Edgar’ on the back?” 

Bab said nothing. She was still staring, not at the 
woman, but at the man to whom, behind the curtains 
of the opposite box, she was whispering with a certain 
air of affectionate intimacy. 

“ Oh!” cried Tryphena almost aloud. “It’s Brad- 
ley Ingledew!” 

“Hush!” said Bab shortly. “We — we shall lose 
all the piece!” 

And she resolutely raised her opera-glasses to the 


84 


OUR WIDOW. 


stage; for the curtain had been up some minutes 
when they arrived. 

But in her steady gray eyes there was a look so 
steely, with so much quiet determination about her 
straight-set mouth, that Sam forgot Molly for a little 
while in wonder as to what was to come of the discov- 
ery Bab had evidently made. 


CHAPTER X. 


Only Tryphena, of the three persons in the 
Frewens’ box that evening at the Haymarket, enjoyed 
the entertainment, and took away a vivid remem- 
brance of the piece played. 

Sam was thinking all the time about the absent 
Molly, wondering where she was, and whom she was 
with. Bab’s thoughts were concerned with the group 
in the box opposite; with the plump woman in the 
black frock and the diamonds, and with the faithless 
Bradley. 

Tryphena good-naturedly tried to persuade her 
sister that there was nothing to be jealous about. 
The woman in the black frock was not even pretty, 
neither was she, in Tryphena’ s opinion, very young. 

“ Look at the powder on her face. Why, you can 
see it from here!” said the younger sister consolingly. 
“It’s one of those candid make-ups that are lilac in 
the shade. It’s only some old married woman lie’s 
got to be civil to! His partner’s wife, very likely.” 

But Bab would not be comforted. She was too 
shrewd naturally, and too much in love besides, to be 
able to console herself by such thoughts as these. It 
was quite true, as Tryphena suggested, that the 
woman Bradley was with was no great beauty ; Bab 
even felt that she herself had no comparison to fear 
on the subject of good looks with the unknown rival. 
85 


86 


OUR WIDOW ; 


But that the woman in black was her rival her instinct 
made her sure. By something indefinable in the atti- 
tude of the woman toward the man Bab could tell 
something: by the way in which they sat without 
speaking, she could tell more. 

It was a long time before Bradley saw the Frewen 
girls, not until the curtain fell at the end of the first 
act. He kept in the back of the box ; and no eyes 
less sharp than Bab’s would have found him out. 

At the very moment that he recognized them, he 
turned abruptly and left the box. 

“He’s coming to see us,” said Tryphena. 

“No, he isn’t,” said Bab quietly. 

As she spoke there was a tap at the door of their 
own box. Sam opened it quickly with a gleam of 
hope. But it was not Molly who was waiting to 
come in. It was Lindo Goring, who had espied them 
from the stalls. 

“The makeweight!” cried Tryphena, in a loud 
whisper. 

But Bab sprang up, and held out her hand with 
unusual warmth of welcome. 

“Oh, Mr. Goring, I’m so glad to see you! You 
may take me for a walk round the corridor if you 
like. It’s stifling in here.” 

She snatched up her little white silk cape ; and be- 
fore Sam, in his odd capacity of chaperon, could sug- 
gest that it was hardly — she had thrown at him a pert 
little nod and swept out of the box, on the arm of the 
astonished Lindo, with her pretty head very high, 
and her big white lace fan with the pearl handles mov- 
ing slightly to and fro as she went. 


OUR WIDOW. 87 

“ Doesn’t Bab walk as if she were a princess!” said 
Tryphena to Sam admiringly. 

“But she doesn’t behave like one,” snapped poor 
Sam. “Princesses always do the right thing; which 
is just what all you girls are warranted not to do!” 

“Well, don’t be cross, Sam, but get me an ice. It 
isn’t my fault that Molly hasn’t come, and that Bab 
has got tired of us.” 

By the time Sam had got her the ice, there was 
another tap at the door of the box, and the make- 
weight presented himself with a rather crestfallen 
and aggrieved air. 

“ What have you done with Bab?” asked Tryphena. 

“Oh, she soon shook me off,” replied Lindo dis- 
contentedly. “ When we got half-way round the corri- 
dor, she tearing along at such a pace that I trod on a 
man’s toes and tore an old lady’s dress, and very 
nearly fell on my nose, we came full tilt into Ingle- 
dew, who turned white and tried to shuffle past, say- 
ing he had to meet somebody. Then I saw how Miss 
Bab meant to serve me. She suddenly discovered 
that she was anxious about her father, and asked 
Ingledew to take her home.” 

Tryphena looked at Sam, and began to giggle. 

“ He didn’t want to, and he tried to persuade her 
to go home by herself, saying he would put her into a 
cab. But she wouldn’t let him off, and so he was 
obliged to make the best of it, and they went off to- 
gether, both very sulky and very savage. I don’t 
know what they are talking about in that cab, but I 
don’t fancy Ingledew is having a good time!” 

Tryphena looked at Sam again, and then glanced 


88 


OUR WIDOW. 


across the house to the plump lady in black. She 
was getting impatient, evidently. Tryphena asked 
Lindo if he knew who she was. 

“That’s Minnie Haarlem,” said he. “She was at 
the ‘Levity’ in ‘Little Dick Turpin.’ Didn’t you see 
her? She played the Maid at the inn, in a pink frock 
with black stripes, and sang a nigger song, with a 
dance and a chorus.” 

“ I didn’t see ‘Little Dick Turpin,’” said Tryphena. 
“Bradley Ingledew was in the box with her.” 

“ Oh!” said Lindo. “ I know he used to rave about 
her at one time, but I haven’t heard so much about her 
from him lately. I thought somebody else had put 
her out of his head.” 

“Bab thought so too,” said Tryphena sagely. 
“And I don’t think she was pleased to find herself 
mistaken.” 

And Lindo agreed with her. 

In the mean time Bradley Ingledew, as the make- 
weight had aptly surmised, was experiencing very 
rough treatment at the hands of Bab. It was not 
until they were in the hansom he had called, and well 
on the way toward Bayswater, that she broke the 
silence. 

“Bradley, who was that woman?” 

“ What woman?” 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. It’s no use. I 
saw her. I saw you with her.” * 

“She isn’t anybody you need trouble your head 
about,” said Bradley rather sullenly. 

“ Do you care about her?” 

“No. There’s only one woman I do care about!” 


OUR WIDOW. 


89 


“ Then why were you in her box?” 

“ Well, I couldn’t get out of it. I didn’t want 
to go.” 

“ Will you swear that?” 

“ Indeed I will,” said Bradley heartily. 

“ And will you swear you don’t care for her?” 

Bradley hesitated a moment. Then he said : 

“ Yes. I’ll swear that too.” 

“Now you don’t say that as if you meant it. 
Bradley, tell me the truth. I’m not a fool. I can 
bear the truth, whatever it is, only I must know, 
know, know!” And she brought down her fan with 
a series of sharp raps on the door of the hansom. 
“If you’re tired of me, if you like this woman better, 
you can tell me so, and I won’t say anything; I won’t 

even cr-r-ry ” Here her voice was suddenly 

broken by a sob. “I’m not one of the — of the 
cr-r-rying s-sort!” Here she broke down altogether, 
and putting her handkerchief up to her eyes, sobbed 
her heart out very pitifully. “Only — only — you’ve 
broken my hear-r-rt!” 

Bradley sat beside her, twisting his mustache with 
a very fierce air, and keeping his eyes on the horse’s 
head as it bobbed up and down in front of him. 

“What rot, Bab!” he said at last pettishly. “You 
don’t know your own mind for two minutes together. 
Only the last time I called, a week ago ” 

“Yes, a week, a whole week!” interpolated Bab 
hysterically. 

“ — you told me,” pursued Bradley, still very fierce, 
and keeping his eyes in such a direction that they 
should not take in her pitiful, weeping face, her 


90 


OUR WIDOW. 


swaying, bending figure, “that you didn’t believe in 
eternal devotion, and — and that sort of thing; and 
you said it was stupid of people to promise it, and 
you never would. And that for your part you meant 
to enjoy yourself, and to go aoout as you pleased, and 
not be tied to love and obey anybody, for years and 
years, not till you were too old and too ugly for any- 
body to care to talk to you. Now, Bab, you know 
you did!” 

“Well,” said she querulously, “well, and what if 
I did?” 

“Oh, well,” said Bradley, rather taken aback, “if 
you admit that, then what have you got to complain 
of? If you can go about and enjoy yourself, why 
shouldn’t I?” 

“There!” cried Bab, snatching her handkerchief 
from her eyes in order to face the monster who was 
capable of such self-contradiction. “ Now you say you 
were enjoying yourself! Enjoying yourself with 
somebody else! Oh, Bradley!” 

He glanced at her hastily, and his mouth quivered 
a little under his mustache. But if he was amused 
by the skill with which she avoided an explanation of 
her own inconsistencies, while reproaching him for 
his, there was a good deal besides amusement in his 
face. The expression in his handsome blue eyes 
changed to one which was very tender, as he suddenly 
threw his arm round her and drew her toward him. 

“ Enjoying myself! Oh, my darling, if you knew !” 

There was so much passion, so much of something 
which sounded like despair in his tone, that Bab, 
startled, resisted his attempt to kiss her. 


OUR WIDOW ; 


91 


“If I knew what? What, Bradley?” 

Foiled in the attempt to reach her lips, he suddenly 
withdrew his arm, and, folding his arms, leaned over 
the door of the hansom and began to whistle softly to 
himself. 

“ If I knew what?” repeated Bab persistently. 

“Oh, if you knew — nothing,” answered Bradley 
petulantly, but with an expression in his face which 
made the shrewd girl suspect that his irritability was 
assumed to hide some deeper feeling than he wished 
her to guess at. “ When you cry like that, and make 
such a fuss, I don’t know what I’m saying.” 

“Well, which did you mean,” persisted she stead- 
ily, “ that you were enjoying yourself in the box with 
that actress, or that you didn’t want to see her, but 
couldn’t get out of it? Because you said both those 
things, and the one thing contradicts the other?” 

There was a pause. Both these young people had 
been idly drifting on a pleasant stream of flirtation 
toward the unseen and unsuspected rock of a serious 
passion. Neither quite understood this yet; neither 
wished to understand it. The man was nearer to 
comprehension of the facts than the girl ; but he was 
very anxious to shut his eyes. 

Not a bad sort of fellow, this Bradley Ingledew; 
light-hearted, good-tempered, generous, and easily 
moved to impulses of kindness, but not very firm of 
principle, not very strong where a woman was con- 
cerned. He knew as well as any one what dangers lie 
in the path of a pretty girl who snaps her fingers at 
chaperonage, and defies convention by taking her 
pleasure in her own way. He knew that, innocent as 


92 


OUR WIDOW. 


she was, harmless as her pleasure seemed to be, this 
handsome Bab with the willowy figure could not long 
persist in doing exactly as she pleased, without get- 
ting the sort of reputation which makes a girl shunned 
by her own sex, and sneered at by the other. 

But he chose to forget this ; to remember only that 
she was a very charming creature, with her distin- 
guished appearance, which made a frock of alpaca look 
better on her than a gown of rich brocade on another 
woman ; and her air of demure gravity, under cover of 
which she uttered speeches full of quaint shrewdness 
in a manner which made them stick in the memory. 

And so, as the time slipped by, and her open pref- 
erence for his society made it easy for him to drop 
into the chair by her side to get the dance he wanted, 
even if it had been promised to another man, neither 
had noticed what a blank the absence of the other 
would have made in life ; and if Bradley had an occa- 
sional qualm of conscience, he stifled it by keeping 
away from Cirencester Terrace for a week. 

Now, in spite of his will, his eyes were being 
forced open : as he listened to Bab’s voice, and recog- 
nized the thrill of deep feeling in her usually flippant 
tones, he felt that the time had come for some sort of 
an understanding, some sort of an explanation. And 
he shuddered at the thought. 

For there was something which he ought to confess, 
but which stuck in his throat ; something which would 
have put a stop to everything; the mere knowledge 
of which in his circle of friends would have turned 
him from an object of envy to a mark for the gener- 
al amusement, perhaps the general contempt. And 


OUR WIDOW. 


93 


more than all this, it would have cut him off from 
pretty Bab forever. And as he looked at her shyly 
out of the corners of his eyes, Bradley felt that his 
strength was not equal to the task. 

He would be careful, very careful; and perhaps 
later — but in the mean time, just for a little while, 
till things got a bit easier, or till they righted them- 
selves by some bit of luck, they must drift on. 

So he answered Bab by saying what was quite true, 
as far as it went : but it did not go far enough, not 
nearly the full length of the journey. 

“ I meant that I didn’t want to go into the box, but 
that civility forced me to! Will that do for you, your 
royal highness?” 

Bab sighed softly, and put her little gloved hand 
lightly on his arm. 

“Yes, that will do, Bradley, that will do quite 
well. And please don’t think I’m jealous; for I’m 
nothing of the kind. Jealousy is a stupid thing, and 
rather vulgar. Only — only ” 

“ Only you like your friends to be always at your 
beck and call, and you are angry and offended if they 
so much as look at anybody else?” 

“Yes, I suppose that is about it!” admitted Bab 
composedly. “ So mind, when I come and see you on 
your house-boat, that you don’t have any girls there 
who are prettier than me, or I shall very likely be 
cross and disagreeable, and spoil the whole day.” 

“All right,” said Bradley. “All the girls I know 
who are prettier than you (and that is some mil- 
lions) shall be warned not to come near the river on 
that auspicious occasion.” 


94 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Don’t talk about ‘auspicious occasions’ ! It’s like 
weddings!” observed Bab with a frown. 

“I didn’t mean to,” said Bradley shortly. “When 
are you coming?” 

“ Well, we generally go to the Cottage at Tedding- 
ton early in June, and it’s the second now. We’d 
better wait till we get down there; then I can slip 
away more easily. If I go away for a couple of hours 
from the Terrace with a sailor hat on, I shall have to 
answer a whole catechism.” 

“All right,” said Bradley. 

They were close to the end of the Terrace now, and 
the cabman put his head to the trap to ask the number. 

Bradley thought he would let Bab go unkissed, 
which would put matters right with his conscience. 
But when the hansom drew up to the door of her 
father’s house, she turned and looked at him with 
evident surprise, in which he chose to fancy there was 
some suspicion. So he kissed her: she seemed to 
expect it. 

Standing on the top of the steps, Bab produced a 
latch-key from her pocket. 

“Just fancy,” whispered she with indignation, 
“ Mrs. Weir wanted to take away our keys ! She said 
she didn’t mind sitting up for us herself whenever we 
went out, if we didn’t like keeping the servants up! 
And that it wasn’t proper for ‘young ladies’ — fancy 
calling us young ladies! Isn’t it horrid? — to have 
latch-keys! That’s the sort of thing we have to put 
up with now!” 

And Bradley condoled with her and gave her an- 
other kiss as she let herself in f 


CHAPTER XI. 


Sam had only Tryphena to take back home when 
the performance was over, and that young person told 
him frankly that he was rather grumpy, and that he 
had better have let the makeweight take her back, if 
he was going to look all the time as if he wished he 
hadn’t had to bring her. 

“ Don’t be cross, Phena,” said he. “ You girls are 
such a handful, that it’s not surprising the care of you 
makes one grumpy.” 

“Oh, it isn’t the care of us, it’s the not having the 
only particular one to take care of, ” said she. 

Sam did not deny this. 

“Will you run in, when you get home,” said he, 
“ and see if Molly has come back? And if she hasn’t, 
come down and tell me?” 

“ All right, ” said Tryphena. 

So when the cab stopped Sam dismissed it, and 
waited on the door-step while Tryphena ran upstairs. 

She returned very quickly, and put her head out 
with an expression of mystery. 

“No, she’s not come home yet. Miss Roscoe and 
Mrs. Weir have been having a ‘ set-to’ in the drawing- 
room — about papa, I think. Miss Roscoe says she 
will go for the doctor herself, and Mrs. Weir daring 
her to! Bab has come back, she came back early, 
and she’s gone upstairs crying, and she says there’s a 
95 


96 


OUR WIDOW. 


mystery somewhere, and that she wishes she was 
dead, or married, and out of it all.” 

Tryphena, having uttered all this in a high-pressure 
whisper, paused to take breath, and looked at Sam, 
to find out what he thought of her story. 

“I think there’s something wrong myself,” he said 
doubtfully. “But I don’t know exactly what it is.” 

“It’s nothing to do with Mrs. Weir,” said the 
young girl sharply, rushing valiantly to the defence 
of her friend, even before the latter was attacked. 
“Oh, Sam, you don’t think it is, do you? You 
wouldn’t if you knew how good she is; and how she 
smooths things over with papa, and yet does her best 
to keep us girls in better order! She’s a dear! I 
only wish she’d marry papa, as Miss Boscoe is afraid 
she will. But she won’t! No such luck! He’s too 
old! She says she’s five-and-thirty, but I don’t be- 
lieve it; do you, Sam?” 

“Why, yes, I believe any woman when she says 
she’s five-and-thirty! Now, good-night; run in. I 
shall look in to-morrow to see how Mr. Frewen is.” 

The door closed softly, and Sam was left outside. 

But he could not go home yet. He felt that he 
must wait and see Molly safe inside the house on her 
return. So he lit a cigarette, and began to patrol the 
street. His anxiety about the girl, which had been 
growing all the evening, had now reached a climax. 
It was twelve o’clock: where could the girl have 
gone? And in whose company had she been? 

To this last and most important question his fears 
gave but one answer. She must have been with Sir 
Walter Hay, the one person of ail be - a" •: lat.-.nco 


OUR WIDOW . 97 

with whom her innocence would be less a protection 
than a danger. 

Sam was at a fever-heat of anxiety on her account 
when at last he saw, turning into the street, two fig- 
ures whom he recognized as hers and Sir Walter’s. 
With the relief he felt at the sight of her there min- 
gled such keen resentment and disgust against her 
companion that Sam felt sick and shivery, and leaned 
against the railing of the house near which he was 
standing, watching the two as they came, walking 
slowly and talking softly, like lovers, up the street. 

Just before they reached her father’s house they 
stopped, and Sir Walter kissed Molly, and left her, 
with two words, which reached Sam’s ears, on his 
lips : 

“ To-morrow then !” 

But at those two words patient, long-suffering Sam 
took fire. What? Was he to see his darling carried 
off by this worn-out, patched-up old wreck without a 
struggle or a sign? Was he to let them make ap- 
pointments under his very nose, and be content to let 
the beautiful child waste her sweetness, her youth, 
her love, on this weary old reprobate? 

A bold impulse seized Sam. He himself had been 
too patient, too gentle, too easily satisfied. The 
ignorant child found him cold, unimpassioned, com- 
pared with the sensual old rogue who knew how to 
use his voice, his looks, in such a manner as to touch 
the susceptible heart of a young girl. No doubt he 
had appealed, and successfully, to every tender qual- 
ity of the budding woman ; to her pity, her forgive- 
ness, her feminine fancy for self-sacrifice ; and to her 
7 


98 


OUR WIDOW. 


weaknesses, her vanity, her ignorant and foolish ideals 
of the school-room. 

He had posed as a cheap Byronic hero, always a 
type of strong fascination to the entirely pure, the 
entirely ignorant. And Sam’s rosebud, Molly, had 
been his easy dupe. 

So thought Sam, as he dashed after the girl, and 
reaching the top step at the same moment as she, 
frightened her so much that she staggered, and would 
have slipped backward off the step if he had not 
caught her by the arm. 

“Is it you, Sam? Oh, how could you? I might 
have fallen on the steps and cut myself!” panted she. 

She was trembling all over; but Sam felt, with 
jealous rage, that this was much more likely to be the 
result of Sir Walter’s kisses than of the fright he 
himself had given her. 

“No, Molly,” he said quietly, “you couldn’t have 
fallen while I was close to you. I want to speak to 
you, dear.” 

Perhaps she noted a change in his manner; he 
spoke more gravely, in a more resolute tone, than 
usual ; and there was a new note of something stronger 
than mere tenderness in his voice. 

She looked up in a frightened way, and turned 
quickly to the door, fumbling in her pocket for her 
own key. 

“ Oh, you can’t stay to talk now. It’s ever so late. 
Come to-morrow ” 

“You are going out to-morrow,” interrupted Sam 
quickly. 

She looked up at him again. It cut him to the 


OUR WIDOW. 


99 


heart to see that she was afraid of him, anxious to 
get rid of him at any price. 

“Oh, well, the day after — any day you like,” she 
said shortly. 

“Molly,” said he very gently, but very firmly, “I 
must speak to you now, dear, while I have the chance. 
Let us walk up the street.” 

“It looks so bad, so late!” objected she pettishly. 

Sam laughed a little. 

“ You didn’t trouble your head about that just now, 
Molly!” 

“Oh, if you’re going to lecture me I’ll go in!” 
cried the girl. And, although she was trembling 
more than ever, she made a dash for the door with 
great vehemence. 

Sam heard something drop, and saw her stoop. It 
was the latch-key, which she was just fitting into the 
door. Without a word, he picked it up and slipped 
it into his pocket. 

“Come, dear,” he said kindly, “I shan’t keep you 
long.” 

But his calm assumption of authority was too much 
for wayward, headstrong Molly. Although she still 
trembled, she answered with some fire, some spirit : 

“ You have no right to prevent my going in, no 
right to preach to me, which is what you want to do, 
I know. I won’t go with you; I won’t hear anything 
you have to say. I’ll ring the bell and risk getting 
into a row rather!” 

And she swung round with great daring. With 
her hand upon the bell, however, she faltered. And 
the next moment Sam had flung his arms round her, 


100 


OUR WIDOW. 


and, with a passion and fire which she had never 
found in him before, was whispering in her ear : 

“My darling, my darling, you must come, you 
must listen. What are you afraid of? Why won’t 
you come? Who in the world are you safe with if 
not with your old Sam?” 

The girl was taken by surprise, vanquished, sub- 
dued. She did indeed try to disengage herself, did 
try to murmur something about her anxiety to get 
indoors before — before it got any later. But the 
victory was won ; and a few seconds after Sam was 
leading her down the steps, with her unwilling but 
passive hand drawn through his arm, her shy eyes 
averted so that he could not read them. 

“Well, well, what is it you have got to say? 
Make haste and get it over!” 

“ Molly, do you remember the skiff, and the even- 
ings we used to have on the river?” 

“Oh, you’re not going to be sentimental, are you? 
I do so hate it! There’s nothing I detest more!” 

“ Do you remember you used to say you liked better 
going out with me than anybody in the world? Did 
you mean that, Molly?” 

“Oh, oh, I did, of course, at the time, or I 
shouldn’t have said it. I — I do like going out with 
you, I always have liked it. But it isn’t fair to bring 
up things one has said like that — a long while 
ago ” 

“When they are no longer true, is that it, Molly?” 

She twisted her shoulders pettishly. 

“ Oh, I knew I was in for a sermon, ” she said with 
an enormous sigh, “ but I didn’t know that I was ex- 


OUR WIDOW. 


101 


pected to account for every word I’ve uttered in all 
my life at the same time! However, go on, go on. 
Let me get in before the milkman comes round, 
that’s all!” 

But Sam was proof even against this tone, espe- 
cially as he perceived, by the tremulous voice and the 
nervous pressure of her fingers, that she was less mis- 
tress of herself than she would have liked to appear. 

“I won’t keep you long, dear. Do you remember 
that I used to tell you I hoped you would always 
think so, and used to ask you to make up your mind 
to go out with me, nobody but me, as long as our lives 
lasted?” 

Molly turned upon him sharply. 

“ Yes. And do you remember that I said it was 
ridiculous, and told you not to go and spoil everything 
by talking nonsense?” 

“You used to talk like that sometimes, Molly. 
But at others,” and Sam’s voice grew lower and 
softer, “you would say that I might say the same 
things to you later, and — and that you would always 
be ready to listen to your old Sam. But now, dear, 
what has come over you that you won’t even 
listen?” 

“Well, well, what’s the good?” said Molly, whose 
arm had begun to tremble more violently than ever. 
“We’re getting too old to talk nonsense now!” 

“Ah, that’s just it! We’ve got too old for non- 
sense. It’s life and death to me just now!” 

Something in his tone checked the scoffing words 
with which the poor child, now fairly at bay, wanted 
to stem the flow of his passionate words, to force him 


102 


OUR WIDOW. 


back into safer commonplace. She tried to draw her 
hand away from him, but he held it fast. 

“No, Molly, no. Don’t take your hand away yet. 
I love you, my little one, I love you, I love you. 
Nobody loves you like me. Nobody understands you 
like me. It’s been going on such a long time that it 
hasn’t any freshness for you, I’m afraid, hardly any 
interest. But I tell you it’s because you don’t know. 
You think just because you see me day after day, 
always the same, never seeming much excited about 
things, that I don’t care much. My God, you don’t 
know! You can’t guess what I feel for you! I 
wouldn’t have you guess. I don’t want to worry you, 
but it’ s hard not to, sometimes harder than you can 
think. I want to take you in my arms when you 
come near me. I never come close to you without 
wanting to kiss you! And this I’ve felt a long time, 
Molly, a long time. And more than this, more than 
I can tell you about, or than you would understand. 
That’s the beauty of it, and the worry, that you 
can’t understand. But I want you to try now; I 
want you to ask yourself whether there’s anybody 
who would take such care of you as old Sam ; any- 
body whom you would get your own way with as you 
would with old Sam ; anybody who in every time and 
every place, year in, year out, would make you as 
happy as old Sam would? Ask yourself that, Molly, 
do, my little one, my darling, ask yourself whether 
you couldn’t take me for your husband, and let me 
take care of you all your life!” 

By the time he ended, Molly’s whole frame was 
shaking like a leaf. The little hand which had been 


OUR WIDOW. 


103 


just inside his arm Sam had gradually drawn further 
and further through, until he held the convulsively 
twitching fingers against his breast. His voice had 
grown unspeakably tender, so that the coldest woman 
in the world could not have listened to him unmoved. 

Molly stopped, struggled to get away, and burst 
into tears. 

“Oh, Sam, Sam, don’t! You don’t know how 
dreadful it is, or — or you wouldn’t!” 

Sam was shocked, frightened. Her tone was so 
despairing, so unutterably sad and miserable, that a 
chill crept over him, and for a moment he could say 
nothing. He could only look at her, note the wild 
eyes, the quivering of her little mouth, and suffer in 
sympathy with her evident distress. 

In a voice half-choked by sobs, she stammered out : 

“I — I’m engaged. I — I’m going to m-m -marry — 
Sir Walter Hay. And — and don’t be angry. And 
— don’t be miserable, don’t, don’t. It will break my 
heart!” 

And, with one swift glance at him, one little cry of 
remorse and grief, Molly ran away, rushed up the 
steps of her father’s house, and pulled the bell 
violently. 

But if she was afraid of expostulations, or more 
explanations, she need not have been so. Sam walked 
down the street, past the place where she stood shiver- 
ing on the steps, without so much as a glance in her 
direction. 


CHAPTER XII. 


It was Mrs. Weir who opened the door and let 
Molly in. 

“ Why, child, what’s the matter?” she asked in a 
low voice, seeing at once by the look on the girl’s 
face, and by the tears in her eyes, that something was 
wrong. 

Molly dashed her handkerchief across her eyes and 
gulped down a sob. She and Mrs. Weir, since that 
night when the latter had insisted on accompanying 
her to church, had not been on speaking terms. She 
was not going to confess and humble herself before 
the spy now. 

“ Nothing, thank you,” she answered haughtily. 
“I hope I have not disturbed you.” 

“Not at all,” replied Mrs. Weir gravely. “You 
have not heard, I suppose, that your father has been 
taken ill.” 

Molly drew a long breath. The words gave her a 
great shock. Mr. Frewen was not the sort of father 
of whom girls could be demonstratively fond; but 
Molly was too affectionate a creature not to be affected 
by this intelligence. 

“111?” she whispered. “Not — very — ill?” 

Even she, absolutely ignorant as she was of all the 
circumstances of the case, thought the manner of Mrs. 

104 


OUR WIDOW. 


105 


Weir was rather curious as she answered, as if uncer- 
tain what words to use : 

“Oh, no, not very ill, I hope and believe.” 

“Is the doctor with him now?” asked Molly. 

Mrs. Weir hesitated before she answered this ques- 
tion. 

“He won’t have a doctor,” she said at last. 

“Oh, but that’s nonsense, isn’t it?” said Molly 
promptly. “ We must send for Dr. Grey, whether he 
likes it or not.” 

“I think it would be better to wait until your 
brother comes home. He has not come yet, and I am 
sitting up to see him. Then he will see your father, 
and perhaps persuade him.” 

“ But the delay! Is it right? Is it safe?” 

“ I think so. I saw Mr. Frewen not half an hour 
ago, and he said he felt better, and thought he should 
sleep. I am going to sleep myself on the sofa in the 
dining-room, with the door open, so that if he wants 
anything I can hear him.” 

“But,” said Molly, with a puzzled look on her face, 
“ he is walking about in the study now ! I can hear 
him! Papa!” 

With this word on her lips, the girl sprang across 
the hall, and turned the handle of the study-door. 

There was no answer, and there was dead silence. 

“Papa!” cried Molly again. “I am so sorry you 
are ill! May I come in and see you?” 

Again there was no answer. But Molly, listening 
with her ear close to the door, felt sure that she again 
heard stealthy movements inside the room. She sud- 
denly stood up, horribly frightened, suspicious. Mrs. 


106 


OUR WIDOW. 


Weir was standing, with a sort of stubborn look of 
unconcern, near the dining-room door. 

“ I shall go myself,” said Molly in an unsteady 
voice, “for Dr. Grey. I — I — I don’t know exactly 
what I am afraid of, but I can’t go to bed till I 
know something more.” 

Mrs. Weir said nothing; but she did not seem to 
be alarmed, only puzzled and anxious. 

“Very well,” she said. “After all, if you, his 
daughter, insist on going, he can’t complain that it is 
my fault.” 

“ Your fault? Of course not. What can you have 
to do with it?” 

“ I have had everything to do with it up to now,” re- 
plied Mrs. Weir wearily, and with some bitterness. 
“ Since he came home this evening, he has locked 
himself in those two rooms, and he has seen nobody 
but me. I have done what I could for him, but it 
has been sufficiently tiring. And I have had to put 
up with the insults, the stupid insults, of that fatuous 
idiot upstairs, in the intervals of my labors. Take 
matters into your own hands by all means if you 
please; I shall be most grateful.” 

Molly looked at her, and was puzzled. She was at 
war with this woman ; she was never tired of inveigh- 
ing against her impertinent interference with the girls 
and their independence. But all the time Molly had 
been conscious, against her own will, that it was Mrs. 
Weir who was in the right, and she and Bab who 
were in the wrong. And she had had the generos- 
ity to avoid any complaint against Mrs. Weir to 
Miss Boscoe, who would have been only too glad 


OUR WIDOW. 107 

to unite forces with the girls to expel the common 
enemy. 

And now she was surprised, against her will, to 
find that Mrs. Weir had not acted with the judgment 
which she would have expected of her. 

“ I don’t want to take anything into my own 
hands,” said Molly bluntly. “And I am sure it is 
very good of you to take so much trouble with papa. 
But it seems such an odd thing, his being taken ill 
like this, and not wanting a doctor — that I think I 
will go to Dr. Grey. For, don’t you know, papa is 
generally so frightened about himself that he sends 
for the doctor if his little finger aches!” 

“Do just as you think best,” said Mrs. Weir, who 
seemed to be too much fatigued to take a vivid inter- 
est in the question. “Perhaps if, as you say, he is 
nervous about himself as a rule, it is a bad sign that 
now he is not.” 

Molly did not hesitate any longer. She did not 
even wait to get a hat, but ran off, with her little fan 
still in her hand, to the residence of Dr. Grey. 
Luckily, the house was only a few squares away, and 
Molly returned in less than half an hour, with the 
information that the doctor was coming. 

It was Mrs. Weir who let her in again, but this 
time there were other faces in the background. Bab 
in her white dressing-gown hovered on the stairs, 
while behind her the darker, broader figure of Miss 
Boscoe loomed large and ominous. 

“I’ve prepared him. I’ve told him the doctor’s 
coming,” said Mrs. Weir as soon as she heard Dr. 
Grey’s message. 


108 


OUR WIDOW : 


“May I see him?” asked Molly. “Til be quite 
quiet, I will indeed. Look! I am not crying, and I 
won’t even speak at all if you think I’d better not.” 

Mrs. Weir hesitated. 

“I’m only afraid, dear, that he may — may frighten 
you a little, ” said she in a low voice. 

Molly felt a chill, an indefinable dread, creep over 
her at these words. Here, in the large, cold hall, at 
the darkest hour of the summer night, with only the 
little jet of gas from the hall lamp burning above 
them, it was easy to understand that mystery of the 
possibility of death, which the young can hardly real- 
ize in the broad light of day. 

She sobbed, tried to check herself, and ran away 
toward the staircase. There Bab caught her. 

“Won’t she let you go in? You, his own daugh- 
ter?” said Miss Boscoe’s voice in a husky whis- 
per. 

For it was characteristic of the governess that her 
complaints against Mrs. Weir never grew loud unless 
that lady was far away. In Mrs. Weir’s presence she 
contented herself with assuming a sullen, stolid air of 
having a secret grief. 

“ Mrs. Weir knows best,” said Molly coldly. “ We 
had better wait and hear what the doctor says before 
we disturb him.” 

“Oh!” moaned Bab. “Isn’t this dreadful? It’s 
like a funeral, without the eating and drinking!” 

“You will all catch cold if you sit there on the 
stairs,” broke in Mrs. Weir in those quiet, decided 
tones of hers which enforced attention. “ Go into the 
drawing-room until the doctor comes ; and then you, 


OUR WIDOW. 


109 


Molly, can come down and hear what he says about 
your father.” 

There was nothing to be said against this proposal, 
which the group on the stairs therefore carried out in 
silence. It was not until they were all in the draw- 
ing-room that Miss Roscoe’s whining voice made itself 
heard again. 

“ Be on the watch, Molly, or she will give you the 
slip.” 

At that moment there was a knock and a ring, and 
they knew that Dr. Grey had arrived. Molly slipped 
out of the drawing-room, ran down the stairs, and 
waited. Anxious as she was, it did not seem a very 
long time before Dr. Grey came out of the study. 
She ran to meet him. 

“Well, what do you think? Is he really so very 
ill, doctor?” 

“ I must see him again in the morning before I can 
tell you,” said Dr. Grey. “At present, I can hardly 
tell what the trouble is. He may have caught a chill, 
I think. But I don’t think you have any cause for 
alarm. His temperature is very little above normal. 
However, I will come in again in the morning.” 

Molly heaved a great sigh of relief. Turning quick- 
ly, she was sure she detected a smile, a very curious, 
demure smile of amusement, on Mrs. Weir’s face. 

It was the widow who let the doctor out; and 
while she was exchanging a few words with him at 
the door in a low voice, Molly ran upstairs to the 
drawing-room. 

Bab got up from the chair into which she had 
thrown herself. 


110 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Well, did you ask if you could see him?” 

“N-n-no. I forgot,” stammered Molly. 

“And what did he say it was? Good gracious, 
Molly, don’t look so — so scared! What did he say?” 

“He? The doctor?” 

“ Why, yes, of course, ” 

“Oh, he — he didn’t seem to know what was the 
matter with him.” 

Miss Eoscoe bounded across the room to the sisters. 
Her plump face was shaking with her agitation ; her 
dull eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. 

“He didn’t know the symptoms, I suppose!” cried 
she in a portentous whisper. “But I could have 
helped him ! And I could have told him they would 
never get any better while a certain person is in the 
house!” 

“Miss Eoscoe, you don’t know what you’re talking 
about!” said Molly, so sharply that the governess, 
with an elaborate and clumsy courtesy bounced out 
of the room. 

The sisters looked at each other. 

“ What did the idiot mean?” asked Bab in a whisper. 

“Oh, some jealous nonsense or other,” said Molly 
impatiently. 

Bab shivered. 

“It’s nonsense, of course,” she said in a troubled 
voice. “But — I do wish she wouldn’t!” 

And the two girls crept upstairs, very silent, very 
cold, to bed. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


When the girls came down to breakfast on the 
morning after the day on which their father was 
taken ill, they found only Miss Roscoe in the dining- 
room. 

She was sobbing in a chair near the fireplace, and 
wiping her eyes with an ostentatious pretence of un- 
obtrusive grief. 

Breakfast was early in the household, as Mr. 
Frewen and his son had to start at nine o’clock for 
the City. It was one of the regulations that every- 
body should be down for prayers, which preceded the 
meal ; and although it did frequently happen that one 
or other of the girls crept in late, either during pray- 
ers or afterward, the culprit always got a black look 
from the master of the house, and was made to feel 
her depravity deeply. 

As for Edgar, he never appeared until after prayers 
were over, and Mr. Frewen had given up remonstrance 
with him. The young man was in the habit of put- 
ting in an appearance when breakfast was half over, 
pale and leaden of complexion, sleepy-eyed, cold and 
cross ; and his father had learnt that a sharp rebuke 
to him only brought forth a still sharper retort. And 
then the girls used to look at each other, and then at 
Edgar, and wonder how he dared! 

On this occasion Miss Roscoe, with a heavy sigh 
111 


112 


OUR WIDOW. 


and an air of martyrdom, on the entrance of the girls, 
read prayers herself in a most melancholy voice, and 
took her place in front of the big bronze urn which 
Mr. Frewen would not allow to be done away with, 
and began pouring out the tea as if that harmless 
beverage had been a nation’s tears. 

Bab made little sarcastic grimaces to Molly, who 
was helping everybody to bacon. And Molly herself, 
exasperated by another loud sigh, stood up from her 
labors, and protested : 

“ Really, Miss Boscoe, I don’t think you need try 
to make us any more miserable than we are by all 
this moaning and groaning! We’re papa’s own 
daughters, and of course we’re very fond of him; 
but ” 

“But we don’t cry over the eggs, and whimper at 
the marmalade,” finished Tryphena in her robust 
voice, as she helped herself to butter. 

Miss Boscoe put on an injured air. 

“I’m sure I’m sorry if my distress offends you,” 
she said with another sigh. “But I can’t pretend 
not to be grieved when I know that your dear papa is 
very, very ill, and when I know that those who are 
nearest and dearest to him are not allowed to go near 
him, and that it’s not taken in good part when 
I object to his being entirely shut up with a 
stranger.” 

“A stranger!” echoed Tryphena indignantly. 
“Mrs. Weir is not a stranger.” 

“A comparative stranger,” persisted Miss Boscoe 
plaintively. “She’s been here hardly six weeks; 
while I’ve been here more than eight y-y-y-years! 


OUR WIDOW. 


113 


But that’s how it always is: the old must always 
make way for the new!” 

“I’m sure that isn’t so with papa!” cried Try- 
phena. “ There never was such a man for keeping 
to people and things and ways he’s been used to. 
The old must be very, very bad, and the new very, 
very good, for papa ever to change! At least, no, I 
don’t exactly mean that, of course,” she corrected, 
perceiving suddenly what an unfortunate speech she 
had made. 

And then, not having any neat amendment ready, 
she fell into a silence that became awkward. 

“ Well, I may be very bad, as you say ” 

“No, no, I didn’t say that. You know I didn’t 
mean to say that.” 

“And,” pursued Miss Boscoe, not heeding the in- 
terpolation, “Mrs. Weir may be very good. But I 
have never tried to estrange you from your father, 
and I have never worried your lives out and irritated 
you by insisting on going about with you wherever 
you went. I’ve always trusted in your good sense to 
take care of yourselves and behave like ladies.” 

Bab glanced at Molly with a sweeping look of dis- 
gust. Poor Miss Koscoe certainly did not succeed in 
expressing herself well. 

“ I don’t suppose you will take any advice of mine,” 
went on the ex-governess. “ But I should advise you 
all to marry as quickly as you can, for it is my firm 
opinion — and you are welcome to repeat it if you like 
— that if anything should happen to your dear papa 
it would be found that he had been influenced, and 
that there would be very little left for his children.” 

8 


114 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ How dare you say such things? How dare you?” 
cried Tryphena, with her eyes flashing with anger. 
“I shall let Mrs. Weir know what you say! I shall 
let her know what a ” 

Tryphena’ s voice was never very low, and never 
very soft. But her indignation has made it so much 
more powerful than usual that it was not surprising to 
find that her words had reached the ears of a person 
who was approaching the door at the time. That 
person was Mrs. Weir. Throwing open the door very 
quickly, and speaking quite easily, with a subdued 
smile on her face, that lady said : 

“ Hush, my dear, there will be no need to tell Mrs. 
Weir anything if you make known your sentiments at 
the top of your voice!” 

“ But she says — Miss Boscoe says ” 

“ Whatever she said was spoken in confidence, no 
doubt,” said Mrs. Weir quietly; “this is not a time, 
when there is a great trouble over us all, for us to 
irritate each other by the repetition of speeches which 
were probably idle ones.” 

Miss Boscoe sniffed, as if to deprecate this mag- 
nanimity. 

“But, Mrs. Weir,” began Tryphena. 

Bab stopped her by a pinch. 

“She’s quite right, Phena,” she said in her low 
voice. “She can take care of herself, and I’m sure 
we don’t want another scene.” 

They were to have “ another scene,” however. For 
when Edgar dashed in, at the very end of the meal, 
and began to devour half-cold bacon with much grum- 
bling, he announced that it had been determined to 


OUR WIDOW . 


115 


send Miss Roscoe with all three of the girls down to 
the cottage at Teddington, leaving himself and Mrs. 
Weir to look after the house and the invalid. 

Molly exchanged glances with Bab, and Tryphena 
grumbled loudly at having to leave Mrs. Weir. Miss 
Roscoe rose suddenly from her chair at the table, and, 
beginning to pace up and down the room, fell into a 
fit of violent, hysterical weeping that monopolized the 
general attention. 

“No, no, no, I won’t go. I refuse to go! I won’t 
leave Mr. Frewen; I won’t leave him, I say! It is 
my d-d-duty to stay where there is sickness; it is 
my duty to see that he is properly cared for, even if 
I am not allowed to take care of him myself. I won’t 
go ! Oh, oh, oh ! For I should never see him again, 
I am convinced of that! None of us that loved him 
would ever see him ag-g-gain! I won’t go, no I 
won’t go!” 

Edgar’s hard, dry, snapping voice — “just the voice 
for a lawyer,” as his sisters always said — broke in 
curiously upon this enthusiasm. 

“ You will have to go, I am afraid, my dear Miss 
Roscoe, or else resign the engagement you have filled 
so admirably for so long. My father and I and Mrs. 
Weir” — Miss Roscoe gave almost a scream — “have 
decided that it is best for the girls, best for all of us 
in fact, that they should go away. They generally 
go up the river before this, as you know. But cir- 
cumstances have deferred their change this year. 
Well, as he is ill, he can’t go too, at least just yet. 
But you can go, as Mrs. Weir is here, and as she has 
been kind enough to say she will undertake to nurse 


116 


OUR WIDOW . 


him” — another scream from Miss Roscoe. “ And as 
for the girls, Fm sure you must see for yourself that, 
with the noise they make, and their visitors make, the 
farther away they can take themselves from the 
invalid the better it will be for his chance of rapid 
recovery. ” 

And at the end of this speech, everybody saw Edgar 
exchange a glance with Mrs. Weir, as much as to say 
that they were getting through the business as well as 
could be expected. 

Only Tryphena took the announcement of this ar- 
rangement simply and without suspicion. She was 
miserable at having to be parted from Mrs. Weir, to 
which she had grown much attached ; but of the wis- 
dom of the plan she had no doubt. The two elder 
girls, although they did not sympathize deeply with 
Miss Roscoe' s lamentations, thought that they them- 
selves might have been consulted in the matter. 
They hardly, however, knew on what ground to make 
an objection. 

At last Bab said, in a tone which expressed admir- 
ably both her own and Molly's feeling: 

“And when are we to be sent — er — out of the 
way?” 

“To-day,” replied Edgar shortly. 

There was a silence. Everybody seemed a little 
out of breath. Even Miss Roscoe had been too much 
impressed by Edgar's business-like manner to offer 
any fresh protest. So the meeting melted away grad- 
ually, and one by one the ladies retired from the 
room, until only Edgar and Mrs. Weir were left. 

Bab and Molly went quickly up to the little morn- 


OUR WIDOW. 


117 


ing-room at the top of the stairs, where Tryphena kept 
her birds, and Bab and Molly did their dressmaking. 

“ What do you think about it, Molly?” asked Bab, 
who always had an opinion of her own upon every 
subject, but who always liked to hear that of other 
people before expressing hers. 

Molly glanced at her sister, and idly took up a pair 
of scissors. 

“I — I don’t want to listen to old Boscoe and her 
grumblings, but I do think it’s rather odd. Of 
course what Miss Boscoe says is all nonsense ” 

“ Oh, you think so?” 

“Well, don’t you?” 

“I suppose so,” said Bab composedly. 

And she took up a paper pattern of a sleeve, and a 
tracing-wheel, and cleared herself a space on the table. 
Molly knelt upon a settee by the window, and looked 
out at the uninspiring prospect of chimney-pots. 

“As far as one’s own feelings are concerned,” said 
she, “nothing could be jollier than to get down to the 
cottage, and to sit under the trees, and go on the 
river, and get the smoke out of one’s throat. But, 
somehow, it does seem rather queer to me that it is 
Mrs. Weir, who we’ve hardly known any time at all, 
and who isn’t any relation that she should take an 
interest in papa, — that it should be she who stays 
with him, and we who have to go! Now, Bab, 
doesn’t it?” 

“Of course it does,” said Bab quietly. “It looks 
very queer indeed, and I expect we shall come back 
to find out that we’ve got a new mamma, or ” 

Bab stopped. 


118 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Or what, Bab?” 

“Well, it doesn’t do to think about other contin- 
gencies,” said Bab sententiously. 

a 0h, but to me — you must!” 

“I shan’t!” 

“Do you — you don’t think— she — she won’t take 
proper care of papa?” 

“My dear, I don’t know anything and I don’t care 
to be so cock-sure as Miss Roscoe. But I do wish we 
knew a little more about Mrs. Weir!” 

Molly looked very grave. Her little mouth puck- 
ered into the prettiest pout of anxiety, and her blue 
eyes began to fill with tears. 

“Do you know, Bab,” she said at last, “that I 
could tell you something?” 

“What?” 

“Sir Walter Hay says he knew her once; at least 
he doesn’t say it right out, but he implies it whenever 
I happen to mention her name. And although he 
won’t tell me anything about her, I’m sure he doesn’t 
think well of her.” 

Now this opinion of Sir Walter’s had very little 
weight with Bab, who called the baronet “ that yellow- 
faced man with the dyed mustache,” and could not 
understand her sister’s preference for him. But she 
thought it might be well to set Molly to “ pump” him 
as to what he knew of Mrs. Weir. If she could get 
him to say anything definite, Bab thought she could 
get Bradley Ingledew to find out if there were any 
truth in Sir Walter’s report. 

“ You had better make him tell you just what he 
does know,” said Bab. 


OUR WIDOW. 


119 


Molly moved restlessly, and strummed an air with 
her finger-tips on the window-sill. 

“I shan’t be seeing him for a day or two,” she 
said, with some constraint. 

“Why, you said ” 

“ Yes, I know I said I should see him to-day ; but 
I shan’t. I don’t mind humbugging the guv’ nor at 
other times, but I can’t when he’s ill. There!” 

“Well, that is absurd,” said Bab philosophically. 
“As if it wasn’t just as bad at one time as another. 
Do you know, really, Molly, I wouldn’t carry on as 
you do with that man if I were you ! There must be 
something awfully shady about him for papa not to 
allow him in the house!” 

“ Shut up, Bab ! How can you lecture me, when 
you are always with Bradley Ingledew?” 

“Ah, but I’m fond of Bradley, in a way; while you 
say you don’t care for Sir Walter. Besides, you 
can’t! An old fellow like that! Why, he must be 
quite as old as papa!” 

“Well, he’s all the more likely to look after me, 
isn’t he, than if he were a flighty young flirt like 
Bradley Ingledew, or — or the makeweight, or ” 

“Or Sam?” suggested Bab. 

Molly grew very red and angry at this mention of 
the name that had indeed been a good deal in her 
thoughts since the preceding night. 

“Oh, don’t talk about Sam,” she said sharply. 
“It’s ridiculous!” 

“Oh, well, I won’t if you don’t like it, and if you 
don’t like Aim,” agreed Bab. “But really I think 
it’s a pity.” 


120 


OUR WIDOW ; 


“Mind your own business.” 

“Certainly, dear. And now about Mrs. Weir?” 

“Fve made up my mind,” cried Molly, springing 
to her feet with an air of great determination, “ that 
I won’t leave this house till I’ve seen papa!” 

“If you get the chance, dear.” 

“I’ll make the chance. Even Mrs. Weir shan’t 
stop me. By the by, Bab, how that woman gets 
round everybody! All the boys like her, and Dr. 
Grey was whispering to her at the door as confiden- 
tially as if she had been already our mamma!” 

“Yes. Just fancy her getting hold of Edgar! 
There’s something uncanny about it. And I myself 
can’t help liking her whenever I’m with her. Can 
you?” 

“ I try to keep my independence, but I come very 
near to tolerating her sometimes!” admitted Molly. 

“ She bewitches everybody, men and women alike. 
That looks bad. Old Smee’s coming here this morn- 
ing, Edgar says. I wonder how she’ll get on with 
him!” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


Mr. Smee, the junior partner in the firm of “ Frewen 
& Smee” was in every respect a complete contrast 
to the senior partner. A man not much more than 
forty years of age, nobody except those irreverent 
Frewen girls would ever have thought of calling him 
old. And if he was comparatively young in years, he 
was much younger still in appearance, in tastes, and 
in his habits and manners. He was a tall, broad- 
shouldered, fresh-colored man, with very black hair 
and whiskers, and twinkling black eyes. He was 
credited with a great admiration for the other sex ; 
was fond of horses, of racing, and every kind of sport, 
had a taste for the drama and its accessories, and was 
commonly supposed to give his partner a good deal of 
trouble. Indeed it was a matter of universal wonder 
that two men so opposite in taste and character should 
have rubbed on together for so many years as they 
had done. 

Mr. Smee was a bachelor, and was supposed to look 
with particular interest on Tryphena. With the fam- 
ily perversity, that young lady would have nothing to 
say to him, and was annoyed by the very mention of 
his name. 

Mrs. Weir and Edgar were still in the dining-room 
together when it was announced to the latter that Mr. 

121 


122 


OUR WIDOW. 


Smee was in the drawing-room. He looked at the 
lady with entreaty in his eyes. 

“ Will you see him?” he asked in a low voice. 

Mrs. Weir looked thoughtful. 

“I think,” she said at last, “that you had better 
see him first, and prepare him a little. He doesn’t 
like me, you know. ” 

Edgar considered a little while, in silence. Then 
he yielded. 

“ All right,” said he. “ I’ll speak to him, and then 
bring him down here to see you.” 

“To see Mr. Frewen,” corrected Mrs. Weir. 

So Edgar went upstairs, where he found Mr. Smee, 
looking larger, more important than ever, pacing up 
and down the room with a heavy tread. He turned 
sharply on his heel when his partner’s son entered, 
and faced the young man with a countenance full of 
anxiety. 

Planting himself firmly in the middle of the floor, 
with his hands behind him, he thundered with a 
frown : 

“Where’s that woman? That Mrs. Weir?” 

Edgar, who was always cool, rubbed his thin hands, 
which looked blue and cold, one over the other as he 
answered in an off-hand tone : 

“Mrs. Weir? Oh, she’s downstairs.” 

“ And how long do you mean to let her remain in 
the house?” 

Edgar blinked at him quietly with his small red 
eyes: 

“As long as ever she’ll stay,” he replied calmly. 

Mr. Smee could not bear Edgar. The young man’s 


OUR WIDOW . 


123 


coolness had an irritating effect on his own more hot- 
blooded nature. He began to shake with anger, 
which he tried in vain to hide. 

“Come, Edgar, you’re not a fool,” he said, forcing 
himself to speak quietly. “ Don’t you know that it is 
she who is at the bottom of this illness of the 
guv’ nor’ s?” 

“It looks like it, certainly,” replied Edgar, speak- 
ing very slowly, and pausing to consider his words. 

“ And in the face of that knowledge you mean to 
let her stay? A woman who came from goodness 
knows where, and who has been mixed up with good- 
ness knows whom?” 

“ Oh, ” said Edgar, “ I know more about her than she 
thinks I do. I could tell you something if I liked.” 

And he proceeded to impart to Mr. Smee a piece of 
information which made the latter ask again : 

“And you mean to keep her in the house?” 

“Hot only that,” answered Edgar, “but I propose 
to take you downstairs to see her, and to do the 
civil.” 

The junior partner stared. 

“Sit down,” said Edgar, “and let’s talk things 
over quietly.” 

And without waiting for the other to accept his 
suggestion, the young man threw himself into the 
cosiest seat he could find, and poured into the ears of 
the astonished Mr. Smee a short but remarkable 
story. 

From time to time, as the recital continued, Mr. 
Smee uttered an ejaculation such as “By Jove!” 
“ First-rate!” 


OUR WIDOW. 


124 

And when it was over, he allowed himself to be 
conducted downstairs to the dining-room, where Mrs. 
Weir was busy writing letters, and was not only civil, 
but almost servile in his manner toward the lady 
whose presence in the house had seemed an offence in 
his eyes only half an hour previously. 

And when finally Mrs. Weir asked him if he would 
now go in and see Mr. Frewen, Mr. Smee replied at 
once that he thought it was unnecessary to disturb 
him ; Edgar would bring him any message that the 
old gentleman might want to send. 

But Mrs. Weir, when this enemy had left the 
house, vanquished and overthrown, peered out anx- 
iously at his retreating figure, and uttered a deep sigh. 

“And the work has only just begun!” she whis- 
pered to herself. “ Only just begun!” 


CHAPTER XV. 


The three girls were hard at work packing their 
trunks for the journey to Teddington, when the 
housemaid came up to inform Molly that her father 
wished to see her. 

Bab and Tryphena sat on their heels and looked at 
their sister. 

“Give him my love,” said Tryphena, “and ask 
him if I may stay up here with Mrs. Weir. Say, 
I’d rather than go to Teddington, where I shall only 
get into mischief.” 

“And Molly,” added Bab with a very wise look, 
“ try to see him alone, quite alone /” 

Tryphena scoffed at this speech, which seemed to 
contain a reflection on her dear Mrs. Weir. Molly 
only nodded and went out of the room. 

Mr. Frewen’s bed had been made up in a small 
room, adjoining the study, which had once been a 
doctor’s surgery. It was at the back of the house, 
a dark apartment at any time ; now, with heavy cur- 
tains hung before the one window, it looked lugu- 
brious in the extreme. 

Mo)]y crept in on tiptoe, frightened by the gloom. 
Surely he must be very ill indeed for the place to 
have to be kept so very dark ! 

Mr. Frewen was lying in bed, with his back to 
the little light there was ; but even then the young 
125 


126 


OUR WIDOW. 


girl was alarmed by the change which she peroeived 
to have taken place in his face. For the first mo- 
ment the thought came into her mind that it was not 
her father at all, this weird old man with shining 
white hair and sunken jaw, who lay staring in front 
of her, without turning his head, and appeared wholly 
unconscious of her presence! 

“Papa!” she whispered. “Papa!” 

And she wished she had not expressed the wish to 
go in and see him by herself. 

Mr. Frewen turned his head a little. He seemed, 
even in this slight movement, to show more sign of 
age than she had been accustomed to see in him. 

“ Who is it?” said he, in a weak and hollow voice: 
“Is it Molly?” Then he added, as if by a pain- 
ful effort of memory: “Oh, yes, of course, I sent 
for Molly!” 

Then he remained silent and still for some minutes, 
not even looking at his daughter. At last, frightened 
by this reception, more solemn and more terrible than 
she had expected, the young girl came a step nearer 
to the foot of the bed, so that his eyes might rest 
upon her, and so bring her back to his mind. 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, rousing himself again, and 
uttering a sigh so heavy, so sad, that it made her 
shiver: “I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to tell 
you one thing, only one thing; and you must tell 
your sisters too: Obey Mrs. Weir. Do as she tells 
you in everything, everything. Then you will be 
sure to do right. And — and — that ? s all.” 

He closed his eyes, and turned his head slightly 
away from her, and toward the wall. 


OUR WIDOW. 


127 


Molly stood still for a few moments, gazing at her 
father with eyes in which, if he had met them, Mr. 
Frewen would have seen profound surprise and a little 
irrepressible suspicion. And then the tears came 
into them. 

“Papa,” she said, in a very gentle voice, “papa! 
Fm so sorry to see you so ill, so awfully sorry! Isn’t 
there anything I can do for you? Won’t you let me 
— let us — stay and — and try to nurse you?” 

But Mr. Frewen frowned irritably. 

“No, no,” said he peevishly. “I want you to go 
away — all you girls at once!” Then he noticed that 
she shrank back a little, and he added less harshly : 
“ You young creatures, what good could you do? I 
know you are willing to do what you could, but you 
are not old enough, experienced enough. It takes 
experience to make a good sick nurse.” 

“Would you rather — really, papa?” she asked 
earnestly. 

“Much rather.” 

And then Molly noticed that, in his anxiety to im- 
press his wishes upon her, his voice had suddenly got 
back its strength. She was afraid that she was per- 
haps exciting him by her persistency, so she only 
said, after a moment’s pause: 

“Very well, papa; of course we will go if you 
want us to; and we will do just what you wish. 
May I kiss you, papa?” 

He nodded consent, and she kissed him. Mr. 
Frewen was fond of his daughters, but he was never 
very demonstrative, and Molly was not surprised to 
get a very frosty little peck in return for her kiss. 


128 


OUR WIDOW. 


“May the others come and see you before they 
go?” 

Mr. Frewen shook his head. 

“No, no. What should they want to see me for? 
Fll come down and see them, see all of you, in a few 
days, when — when I’m well enough.” 

He spoke rather testily, and Molly thought he 
seemed to want to get rid of her. So she said: 
“Good-by, papa!” and noticed that, although he did 
say “ Good-by” in return, he did not even look at her 
again. 

She went slowly and thoughtfully upstairs. If 
Edgar had been still in the house she would have 
spoken to him, would have asked him what he 
thought of their father’s illness, and of his strange 
infatuation — there was no other word for it — for Mrs. 
Weir. 

But then Edgar himself seemed to have become, 
that morning, as infatuated as his father! 

Molly heard voices in the morning-room before she 
opened the door; and when she did so, some sort of 
skirmish which was taking place there came abruptly 
to an end. 

And under a roll of embroidered muslin, with 
which it had been thought to extinguish him, she 
discovered Bradley Ingledew ; while Bab, looking as 
cool as ever, made fresh marks with her tracing- 
wheel on the stuff spread out before her. 

Molly greeted Bradley with a nod. 

“You don’t seem to have got on very fast while 
I’ve been away,” she said. 

“ I’ ve only just begun, ” replied Bab quietly. “ P ve 


OUR WIDOW. 


129 


had to finish packing first. And Bradley’s no help 
at all in a workroom! He can’t even stick in a pin! 
But what have you been doing with yourself? You 
look whiter than my muslin!” 

Molly shivered. 

“Papa looks awful,” she said gravely. “He’s 
very ill. I wish I knew what is the matter with 
him.” 

Neither of the others spoke. But they exchanged 
a glance of deep significance, and Bradley began to 
whistle softly. 

Molly looked from the one to the other. 

“What is it?” she said, while the blood began to 
flow into her cheeks again. “ What is it? Do you 
know anything, either of you?” 

“ Bradley came here to tell us something, ” answered 
Bab softly, as she stepped lightly across the room 
and peeped outside the door. “Do you happen to 
know where Mrs. W. is, Molly?” 

“No, I haven’t seen her since breakfast. Is it 
about her you have something to tell us, Bradley?” 

“Well,” said he, twisting his mustache and look- . 
ing interrogatively at Bab, “it is — er — not wholly 
unconnected with her, certainly.” 

“Oh, you can tell Molly,” said Bab. “If you 
don’t, I shall.” 

This was enough for Bradley. 

“I met a man the other night,” said he, “who had 
seen her with you girls, and he asked me if I thought 
your father knew anything about her. It appears 
she has a history.” 

“I told you so,” remarked Bab to Molly. 

9 


130 


OUR WIDOW ; 


“ There was a man, ” went on Bradley, twisting his 
mustache and looking at the muslin, as if conscious 
that his story was hardly the sort of one he would 
have chosen for his audience, “ who was mixed up in 
some company frauds some years ago; I don’t sup- 
pose you remember them, though they made a great 
stir at the time. There was one in particular, the 
Pangola Reef smash, that more than one person had 
to make himself scarce about.” 

Bab glanced at Molly, and wondered whether she 
had heard that the “ Pangola Reef” had involved Sir 
Walter Hay in its discreditable meshes. 

“His name,” went on Bradley, “was Max Lowen- 
stein. He was a very good-looking chap, and very 
young at the time ; or at any rate he looked very 
young. I don’t know what country he was a native 
of, but he was not an Englishman ; he was dark, al- 
most dark enough for an Indian. Well, he had a — 
a — a wife, in fact, who was very handsome, and aw- 
fully extravagant ; so that people said it was she and 
not the poor fellow himself who was at the bottom of 
the swindle. However, of course people didn’t know 
that ; they only said it. And others said it was all the 
other way, and he was a common swindler who used 
her as a decoy, with her smart receptions and dances, 
and her pretty turnout in the park. And then, after 
the crash, he disappeared very suddenly, and nobody 
knows what became of him. And she — well, she 
disappeared too. And — and that’s all the story,” 

*‘Oh, no!” said Molly, with unusual gravity, “that 
isn’t all. Because of course you mean that Mrs. 
Lowenstein is Mrs. Weir!” 


OUR WIDOW . 


131 


“ Well, it isn’t what I say/’ said Bradley quickly. 
K Fm only repeating to you what I’ve been told, 
because, since the story was going about, I thought 
you ought to know it. Of course there may be no 
truth in it at all.” 

“ And if there were,” said Molly, “ nobody seems 
to have proved anything against her! Women have 
a right to be extravagant when their husbands can 
afford it. And very likely she thought he could.” 

Little Molly spoke out of the generosity of her 
heart, feeling that the absent one ought to have a 
defender. But in truth the story of the husband’s 
strange disappearance, taken in connection with the 
mysterious influence Mrs. Weir had acquired in this 
household, gave her great uneasiness. 

Bab was more uneasy still. 

“I think Edgar ought to know,” she said, “and 
Tryphena. And somebody ought to ask her if she ever 
heard of a Mr. Max Lowenstein. We could see then, 
by the way she took it, whether the story was true.” 

There was a silence. 

“Don’t you think, Bradley, that my suggestion is 
a very good one?” 

“I don’t know. Who’s to do it?” 

“ Well, couldn’t you? You might stay to luncheon, 
and mention his name casually, you know.” 

“Not if I know it!” murmured Bradley fervently. 
“Ask Edgar. That fellow doesn’t care what he 
says ” 

“To anybody but Mrs. Weir!” sighed Molly. 
“Besides, we couldn’t do it like that. It’s too un- 
kind, too cruel!” 


132 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ But how do we know that she isn’t being cruel to 
papa ?” said Bab in a deep voice. 

Molly shivered. 

Before she could make any answer, the door burst 
open, and Tryphena rushed in. 

“ Mrs. Weir says — ” she began, and then, catching 
sight of Bradley, she broke off. “ Hallo! When 
did you come?” 

“ My lucky star brought me in time to say good-by to 
you all. I hear that Mrs. Weir, who appears to be in 
possession here, has ordered you all off to Teddington.” 

“I’m coming back again,” replied Tryphena defi- 
antly. “ I shall go down with the rest of them, like a 
good girl, and then sneak back again.” 

“ Like a bad one?” suggested Bradley. 

“ Well, I don’t see why poor Mrs. Weir should 
have to bear all the trouble of nursing papa and look- 
ing after the house, all by herself, when she isn’t 
even a relation!” 

Bradley and Tryphena’ s two sisters exchanged 
looks which betrayed a mutual understanding. And 
Tryphena took fire. 

“Ah! I see,” she burst out angrily. “You’ve 
talked Bradley round, and you’re all in a conspiracy 
against Mrs. Weir. And just because she’s done her 
best for us girls, and tried to make you two behave 
better than you care to do, you have taken a dislike 
to her, and you are ready to join old Boscoe in in- 
venting wicked and stupid tales about her!” 

Bab, who was the most self-possessed of the trio 
against whom Tryphena brought her lusty accusa- 
tions, looked superciliously at her sister. 


OUR WIDOW. 


133 


“ My dear, ” she said in a lofty tone, “ you are a 
child; you can’t understand things. Your Mrs. 
Weir is a delightful person, we know. But she has 
not the monopoly of the cardinal virtues that you 
suppose.” 

“What do you mean? Say out what you mean,” 
said Tryphena, becoming suddenly so quiet that Molly 
was deceived into thinking she had resolved to listen 
with an open mind. 

So it was Molly who hastened to answer, in spite 
of a warning “ Sh — sh!” from Bab. 

“Why, her real name isn’t Mrs. Weir at all; and 
she and a man named Lowenstein were mixed up in 
a big swindle that all London talked about ; and no- 
body knows what has become of him; but people 
can’t help thinking ” 

“Sh — sh!” It was Bab who spoke, gripping her 
sister’s arm. Molly checked herself, perceiving that 
Tryphena’ s face had flushed and her eyes grown 
bright with anger. 

“What! What! Do you expect me to believe 
these stories, when I know her, I know her quite 
well? When I know that she's the best woman I 
ever met, and the sweetest and the kindest? And 
— and — and — oh, it’s hateful, vile, infamous to say 
such things!” 

At each strong adjective Tryphena’ s voice grew 
higher, and she stamped her foot on the floor with 
increasing vehemence. The others were rather 
frightened, thinking she would go into hysterics. 
They tried to soothe her, to calm her ; Molly put her 
arms round her neck. 


134 


OUR WIDOW. 


But Tryphena shook them off, refused to listen, 
and went on screaming loudly : 

“It’s monstrous, monstrous, I say!” 

And in the midst of this tumult, while she still 
screamed, and all the others tried their best to com- 
fort her, Mrs. Weir herself opened the door and 
walked quietly in. 

Every one in the little room was strangely im- 
pressed by the change which had taken place in the 
lady’s appearance,— every one, that is to say, except 
poor Tryphena, who was far too much excited to no- 
tice anything but the fact that there stood her beloved 
Mrs. Weir face to face with her traducers. 

Instead of the placid beauty of her everyday ap- 
pearance, Mrs. Weir now presented a countenance 
which, though still handsome by reason of its regu- 
lar features and smooth delicacy of complexion, 
looked worn and haggard in the strong light; in the 
long eyes there was a cloud of anxiety, and the 
straight red line of her lips was narrower than usual, 
as if under the pressure of a great resolution. 

The two elder girls were touched by the expression 
of her face, and at once, with the generous impulse of 
youth, veered round in favor of the woman who 
looked harassed and unhappy. As for Bradley, it 
smote him to the heart to think that he had been 
spreading, however innocently, unfavorable reports 
about a lovely woman. 

They stood horror-struck, helpless, when Try- 
phena, dashing round the table to Mrs. Weir, flung 
her arms round her neck, and panted out between 
her sobs : 


OUR WIDOW. 


135 


“Oh, Mrs. Weir, my dear, dear Mrs. Weir, now 
you can tell them to their face that their stories about 
you are a pack of lies!” 

“How can you, Tryphena? Be quiet!” cried Bab, 
whiter than ever, and with her voice trembling with 
fear. 

“I assure you, Mrs. Weir, that 1-^-” began Brad- 
ley, who was crimson and uncomfortable, and who 
looked the picture of guilt. 

But Tryphena broke in, silencing him at once by 
her loud-voiced vehemence : 

“ Yes, you did. I know it was you who told those 
wicked stories. Why don’t you speak out like a 
man, and ask Mrs. Weir if she ever even heard of a 
person called Lowenstein- — -” 

They fell upon her and stopped her at this point, 
Molly pulling her arm violently on one side, and Bab 
beginning to talk fast, in a high key, to drown her 
wild words. For they were frightened by the effect 
of her rash speech on Mrs. Weir, and would have 
given the world to undo what their indiscretion had 
done. 

At the mention of the name of “Lowenstein,” the 
color had suddenly vanished from Mrs. Weir’s face, 
leaving it white, rigid, like a mask of death. The 
diversion made by the two elder girls gave her time 
to recover herself, so that when there was a pause in 
the babel of tongues she was able to laugh quite 
naturally, and to speak in her usual voice. 

“A person called ‘Lowenstein’!” she repeated, 
puckering her eyebrows with an appearance of pro- 
found surprise. “No, I don’t think I ever have 


136 


OUR WIDOW ; 


heard of the person; but if I had, what of it? What 
is the precise nature of the crime of having heard of 
a person called ‘Lowenstein’?” 

Then they all turned upon poor Tryphena, laugh- 
ing uproariously and asking her to explain what the 
crime was. And the girl, feeling that she had 
blundered, and that she had hurt the friend in whose 
cause she had interfered, burst into tears and sobbed 
bitterly. 

Mrs. Weir did not attempt to speak to her, but 
she passed her white hand tenderly again and again 
over the girl’s silky hair, while, with a strange smile 
on her lips, she went on talking to the other two 
girls. 

“I sent Tryphena up to you with a message,” she 
said; “did she deliver it?” 

“No, Mrs. Weir,” answered Bab. 

“Well, I have been looking at the time-table, and 
I think it would be better for you to have luncheon 
a little earlier, and to catch the two-thirty train. 
It will be better to get down there in good time, 
won’t it?” 

They all agreed, and she went away in a few min- 
utes, Tryphena slipping out of the room the moment 
after, without waiting for the reproaches of her sis- 
ters at her maladroitness. 

Then the others looked at each other. 

“That’s the worst of telling anything to girls!” 
said Bradley shortly. “A nice mess you’ve landed 
me in! I shall never be able to look Mrs. Weir in 
the face again!” 

“I’m awfully sorry, awfully!” said Molly, with 


OUR WIDOW . 


137 


contrite tears in her eyes. “ I feel so beastly mean 
over it! I didn’t think Phena was such an idiot!” 

Then Bab spoke musingly. 

“ She is very anxious to get us out of the house ! 
And — I’m sure she did know Lowenstein!” 

And there was an awkward silence. For, though 
they did not like to own it, both the others agreed 
with her. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


As soon as the three girls and the melancholy 
Miss Roscoe had been packed into a couple of cabs 
with their luggage, and thus started on their journey 
to Teddington, Mrs. Weir drew a long sigh of relief, 
and sitting down to the writing-table which stood in 
the dining-room window, she wrote a note to an 
institute for sick-nurses, asking that two nurses 
(with experience in slight mental cases preferred) 
should be sent at once to 203 Cirencester Terrace. 

She had taken care, knowing the erratic character 
of the young girls with whom she had to deal, to send 
the housemaid to see them off at the station. She 
did not want to have one or other of the Frewen 
lasses running back to the house about tea-time, as it 
seemed quite possible they might take it into their 
flighty little heads to do, on the strength of their new 
suspicions of herself. 

Her note written and dispatched, Mrs. Weir, with 
another deep sigh, seated herself behind the lace cur- 
tains of the dining-room window, and, taking up a 
book, laid it open in her lap, so that if any person 
were to enter the room unexpectedly, she would ap- 
pear to be reading. 

But she did not read ; she did not give one glance 
at the book ; did not even know its name. She set 
herself to watch through the curtains the passers- 
138 


OTJR WIDOW. 


139 


by in the street outside, not with the air of a woman 
idly amusing herself, but with lips tightly pressed, 
eyes aglow with excitement, and a look of keen 
expectancy mingled with fear on her handsome 
face. 

Once, when there was no person or vehicle in sight, 
she rose hastily, and looked at herself in the glass 
over the mantelpiece. She was wearing a very plain 
frock of navy-blue serge, the severe simplicity of 
which was toned down by a handsome collar of 
string-colored lace. The dress became her ; she 
was too handsome, too carefully considerate of every 
touch, not to look well in anything she wore. But 
she looked perhaps less brilliantly beautiful than in 
the more elaborate costumes she generally preferred. 
There was an air of sedateness about her, rather than 
of voluptuous and regal beauty. And while she 
looked, the diamonds she habitually wore in her ears 
caught her eye. She put up her hands, and took the 
jewels out. 

Then hearing a slight sound in the street outside, 
she hurried eagerly back to the window and resumed 
her place behind the curtain. 

And presently her attention was attracted by some- 
thing which was evidently not what she had been 
looking for. 

Moving with the utmost caution, so that no slight- 
est movement of the lace curtain should betray the 
fact that it concealed a pair of watching eyes, she 
changed her position so that she could command less 
of the street, but more of a certain unoccupied house 
a little farther down on the opposite side of the way, 


140 


OUR WIDOW ; 


where a great white bill in one of the windows an- 
nounced that the commodious residence was to let. 

She was very patient, very cautious. And before 
long she was rewarded by the discovery that from 
behind the dusty panes of the tenantless house a 
pair of eyes were watching the entrance of No. 203. 

And as soon as she was sure of this, Mrs. Weir 
crept away from the window, for a few minutes, 
afraid that the nervous trembling she could not at 
once conquer would betray her presence to the 
watching eyes. 

She paced the room several times, her lips pressed 
tightly together, her whole face clouded with earnest 
thought. And so deeply absorbed was she that when 
at last some one ran up the steps and pulled the bell, 
the sound took her by surprise, and set her trem- 
bling afresh with nervous excitement. 

There was the measured step of the servant across 
the hall ; the opening of the door ; the short colloquy 
in low tones ; then J ohns came into the dining-room, 
and asked whether Mr. Bitchie might see her. And 
then Sam walked in, and noticed at once a great 
change in her appearance. 

The fact was that the announcement of this man 
whom she had not expected, instead of the person for 
whose arrival she had been waiting, had thrown her 
off her guard. She received Sam with a welcoming 
hand and a pleasant smile. But he noticed that the 
hand twitched nervously, and that the smile was 
forced. 

“You don’t look well,” said he kindly. “This 
affair of Mr. Fre wen’s illness has been too much for 


OUR WIDOW. 141 

you. What is this Johns tells me about your going 
to nurse him yourself?” 

“ I have given up the idea, ” she said, as she sat 
down in the darkest corner of the room and invited 
him to a chair so placed that he should not get a 
good look at her face. “Not an hour ago I wrote for 
a couple of nurses, and I am expecting them every 
minute. You won’t mind if I have to run away 
from you in a hurry? I must see them as soon as 
they come!” 

“Nobody stands on ceremony with me,” said Sam. 
“I hope I haven’t disturbed you when you ought to 
have been resting?” 

“ Not a bit. Mr. Frewen gives no trouble. He is 
asleep, I think, now.” 

“Has the doctor been able to state what is the 
matter with him?” 

“ Not very definitely. He can only suggest ner- 
vous break-down from overwork, and says he Is to 
remain in bed for the present.” 

“Yet two nurses are necessary?” 

Mrs. Weir smiled rather bitterly. 

“Frankly, they are more on my account than on 
Mr. Frewen’ s. There have been suspicions cast upon 
me, I know ” 

“Suspicions? Surely not, Mrs. Weir. Surely — ” 

“I tell you it is so,” interrupted she impatiently. 
And she got up, as if unable to keep still, and began 
to pace up and down the room. “ Mr. Ingledew was 
here this morning on purpose to impart to these 
young girls some valuable information about me, or 
which is supposed to be about me, which he picked 


142 


OUR WIDOW. 


up at his club. If you ask him, no doubt he will 
communicate it to you also!” 

Sam jumped up in his turn. 

“Mrs. Weir, is that quite fair?” 

“Quite,” snapped she. “Suspicions of a woman 
whose antecedents you don’t know count only as com- 
mon caution; and no doubt you have had yours with 
the rest. I don’t complain of that. You must re- 
member that I was very open with you from the 
first.” 

“I know you were. I was grateful to you for 
your promise to do what you could for those silly 
girls ; I am still more grateful for the way in which 
you have kept your word. I have come to-day on 
purpose to consult you about Molly.” 

Mrs. Weir, who looked more worried, more excited 
every moment, and who glanced perpetually out of 
the window as she walked to and fro, stopped and 
looked at him earnestly. 

“Can’t you come to-morrow, and tell me then?” 
she said almost irritably. “ I am really rather tired 
now, and I have to see these nurses ” 

It seemed rather strange that she should be so 
deeply interested in the arrival of the nurses. Sam, 
however, walked toward the door. 

“I will go at once,” said he. 

Putting strong constraint upon her impatience, 
Mrs. Weir came quickly across the room to where he 
was standing, and kept the door shut with her hand 
while she spoke. 

“ You will think me rude and unkind, ” she said. 
But indeed I am sorry. No, I will not let you go 


OUR WIDOW . 


143 


away like that; it is selfish of me. Let me hear 
what you have to say. What about — about” — it 
seemed to require an effort of memory to recollect 
what he had said — “ about — Molly?” 

“You have sent the girls away, Johns tells me, 
with only that foolish Miss Eoscoe to look after 
them!” 

“Well, what could I do? Mr. Frewen has to be 
kept so quiet! And while he insists upon so much 
of my attention, how can I look after the girls?” 

“You could have done more than you can do 
now!” said Sam ruefully. “Molly told me last 
night that she is engaged to Sir Walter Hay. That 
she is going to marry him!” 

At that, Mrs. Weir looked grave. 

“How, do you suppose he really means to marry 
her? Counting upon getting something out of Mr. 
Frewen’ s fortune in the long run? Or — or — what 
do you think?” 

Mrs. Weir shook her head. 

“It would be a slender chance to marry a girl 
upon, when her father is a man like Mr. Frewen!” 
said she. “Why, he would never speak to her 
again, if she ran away and married a man whom he 
disapproved of! And Sir Walter is too old a man 
not to know that.” 

“That’s just what I thought myself,” said poor 
Sam.” “Can’t you speak to her and tell her that?” 

“My dear Sam, consider! Would that do any 
good? I tell you, the two girls have been turned 
against me as it is. What heed would she pay me? 
Your chance is better than mine.” 


144 


OUR WIDOW. 


It was Sam’s turn to shake his head. 

“ I did speak. I spoke last night. I said every- 
thing I could think of ; I spread myself out for her to 
trample upon. It was no good. And now I can’t 
do any more. I can’t even go near her again. I 
am ashamed to. I feel that I’ve made a fool of my- 
self. And I’m going to try to forget her!” 

Mrs. Weir smiled, with that air of womanly kind- 
liness which was her greatest attraction in Sam’s 
eyes. 

“Ah!” she said. “But it will not be so easy, 
Sam!” 

He slapped his left hand with his gloves with an 
air of great determination. 

“Well, you’ll see, Mrs. Weir,” said he. “You all 
think I’m made of putty, and that because I’ve put 
up with so much, I will put up with anything. But 
I’m going to make a stand. I’m going to show Miss 
Molly that there are other girls in the world, and that 
if she likes Sir Walter Hay better than me, why, 
there are other people I can get on with as well as 
with her!” 

“Very good; very good indeed. If it will only 
outlast the first meeting!” 

“There will be no meeting,” replied Sam fiercely. 
“At least, none until I am fortified by the presence 
of — the other girl!” 

“Oh, there is another then?” said Mrs. Weir, 
raising her eyebrows. 

“ There soon will be, ” replied Sam, as he drew on 
one glove with energy wftich pulled a button off. 

“That’s right. Unless, of course, you should 


OUR WIDOW ; 


145 


prove less stanch than you suppose, and the ‘ other 
girl’ should have to suffer!” 

“ Trust me!” 

“ Poor Molly!” 

“Why, ‘poor Mollie’? Nobody can say she has 
been treated badly!” 

“No. She has treated you badly. Still I say, 
Poor Molly!” 

“That’s not my fault!” 

“I wonder how she will get on without her Sam?” 

“That’s her lookout. I've come to the conclusion 
that I had a bad moral effect upon her ; that she felt 
that, whatever she did, however outrageous her be- 
havior was, there was always Sam, meek-spirited 
Sam, to keep her in countenance.” 

Mrs. Weir’s worried expression gave place for a 
moment to one of amusement. 

“Now I really think there’s something in that!” 

“And now that she won’t have me to dance 
attendance upon her, she’ll have the sense to see that 
she must mind her p’s and q’s, and behave more 
like a reasoning creature.” 

“Ah, well, that may be.” 

“At any rate,” said Sam, “I mean to make an 
experiment, and I shan’t trouble myself about the 
result. I’m going to wash my hands of the whole 
family. They took up too much of my time.” 

“And who do you suppose will be the greater 
loser by the change? The family, or you?” 

Sam’s face, unguessed by himself, fell a little. 
But he stuck to his colors. 

“ The family, ” he answered quietly. 


146 


OUR WIDOW. 


Mrs. Weir smiled again. 

“Well, we shall see,” she said. “But I notice 
that, in washing your hands of the family, you ex- 
pect me not to do the same?” 

“Ah, a lady is different. She can do so much 
more.” 

“ Pm not so sure of that. However, I am ready 
to try. It won’t do for everybody to wash their 
hands of the poor girls at the same time!” 

Sam moved restlessly, but he still had the air of a 
man who is not going to allow himself to be talked 
over. In fact he had another excellent argument 
upon his lips, when there was a ring at the front-door 
bell, and a knock, and Mrs. Weir became perceptibly 
and suddenly paler. 

“There are your nurses,” said Sam. “And now 
I’ll take myself off.” 

But Mrs. Weir seized his arm in such a tight grip 
that he could not turn the handle of the door. 

“Wait a minute,” she said imperiously. “Wait — 
until they are inside the house. I — I have some- 
thing to ask you. When you go along this street, 
notice the empty house a little way down on the op- 
posite side of the way. And find out for me, if you 
can, whether there is any one in it set to watch this 
house.” 

Sam looked rather startled. 

“It may be only my fancy, of course,” said she 
quickly. “ But I should like to know. And I can 
trust you to say nothing about it. And as for sus- 
picions, why,” she went on with a curious but anxious 
smile, “you may suspect what you like.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


147 


Even while she was speaking both she and Sam 
had become aware that there was an altercation of 
some sort going on in the hall, and that, while one of 
the voices was that of Johns, the other was that of 
a gentleman. And while the tones of the former 
were respectful and full of persuasive and deprecatory 
civility, those of the other man were angry, impe- 
rious, and insistent. 

It seemed now to Sam that Mrs. Weir had been 
speaking about a matter which was startling in itself 
in order that he might not hear too much of the alter- 
cation in the hall. Just as this thought crossed his 
mind, the door of the dining-room was opened quick- 
ly by Johns, who looked much disturbed. 

“ I have asked the gentleman to go upstairs into the 
drawing-room, ma’am, but he will not. I — I ” 

Johns stopped short, perhaps warned by a look 
from Mrs. Weir not to say much in the presence of a 
third person. Sam, feeling that he was in the way, 
made haste to shake himself off. 

“I will see about it at once, Mrs. Weir,” said he, 
as he passed the servant and went out into the 
hall. 

And there he came face to face with a strongly 
built, rough-looking man, with a complexion so dark 
as to be almost swarthy, an untrimmed black beard, 
a long black mustache with sharp-pointed ends, 
which gave him an expression which can only be de- 
scribed as fierce, and gleaming black eyes. He wore 
a shabby old reefer coat, and held crushed up in his 
hand a shilling tweed cap. Yet Sam, assisted in his 
conclusion by what he had heard of the stranger’s 


148 


OUR WIDOW ; 


voice, saw that the rough-looking stranger was a gen- 
tleman. 

As Sam came out of the dining-room, Johns fol- 
lowed him to the front door. And at the same mo- 
ment the stranger made a dash for the open door of 
the dining-room. Sam looked round in time to see 
the meeting between the visitor and Mrs. Weir. 

He heard no word spoken. But the look which the 
man exchanged with the woman was one of recogni- 
tion. 


CHAPTEB XVII. 


Sam heard the dining-room door close without 
a word having been exchanged between Mrs. Weir 
and the visitor. Without being unduly curious, he 
thought he would like to know what the name of the 
stranger was. 

“Who is that, Johns?” he asked carelessly, as he 
left the house. 

“I don’t know, sir,” answered the man with the 
slightly haughty tone of an old servant who feels that 
he ought to have been indulged with more confidence 
than has fallen to his share : “ Mrs. Weir told me to 
expect a gentleman and to show him upstairs. But 
he would not give his name, and he would not go 
upstairs; and Mrs. Weir did not mention his name 
either, sir!” 

“Oh, all right, Johns.” 

Sam affected to treat the matter with complete in- 
difference, but he was far from feeling comfortable 
about this fresh mystery. He would have liked very 
much to know who this strange man was, who was 
expected by Mrs. Weir, but who had an angry alter- 
cation with the servant, and who then met Mrs. Weir 
with such mysterious silence. Was he, Sam asked 
himself, the lady’s husband? 

A world of possibilities were opened by this sug- 
gestion, which seemed a probable one enough. Mrs. 

149 


150 


OUR WIDOW : 


Weir called herself a widow, but she had acknowl- 
edged enough to Sam himself for him to feel by no 
means certain of the fact. Sam liked her, believed 
in her goodness of heart, which indeed he had proved 
by her efforts on behalf of the girls. But that she 
had had an adventurous, perhaps a stormy, life, he 
had no doubt. And although he had not heard Brad- 
ley’ s story about Max Lowenstein’s and the “Pangola 
Beef/ it occurred to him as very probable that she 
might be burdened with an undesirable husband from 
whom she had been hiding, who had at last found her 
out. 

And then Sam’s thoughts took a fresh turn. He 
had reached the end of the street, having forgotten all 
about Mrs. Weir’s request, when the matter of the 
empty house and of the supposed watching eyes in it 
came back to him. 

He sauntered back up the street, and seeing that on 
the ‘To Let’ board were the words ‘Apply on the 
Premises’ he ran up the steps, rang the bell, and 
asked the woman who opened the door whether he 
could see the house. 

She led the way, opening the doors of the different 
rooms, and carefully pointing out, after the manner 
of care-takers, never anxious to be turned out by an 
incoming tenant, the various disadvantages from 
which the house suffered. 

“There’s no light at all in this room, sir, ’ceptin’ 
first thing in the morning,” she explained as she 
threw open the door of the study. 

“ Drains all right?” Sam asked, in his character of 
house-hunter. 


OUR WIDOW. 


151 


“Well, no, sir, I can’t say as what they are. My 
’usband and me have noticed some very bad smells 
at times.” 

And, having by this time arrived at the first floor, 
she showed him into the back room, and remarked 
that the front-room was locked up, but that it was 
much like the one underneath, but a trifle bigger. 

Sam, however, not content with this assurance, 
walked past her, tried the door which was supposed 
to be locked, found that it opened at once, and that 
there was a man in the room, who was sitting on a 
box close under the window, so that only his head 
was higher than the window-sill. 

“Oh!” said the woman, rather confused, “Oh, 
that’s only a man who’s been cleaning the windows.” 

But Sam knew by the cut of the man that he was a 
detective. 

Crossing the room to the window, Sam glanced out 
at Mr. Frewen’s house, and then looked at the man 
with a knowing nod. 

“Watching No. 203?” said he in a low voice. 

And the man, taken by surprise, assumed at once 
that his interlocutor knew more than he in fact did, 
and answered : 

“Yes, sir.” 

Sam would have given a good deal to know more. 

But he saw that another question would betray his 
real innocence, so he refrained. 

He then told the woman that he did not think it 
worth his while to see more of the house, as it was 
too big for him, gave her a shilling, and went away. 

He was much disturbed by this discovery, pointing 


152 


OUR WIDOW. 


as it did to the existence of some secret of Mrs. 
Weir’s more dangerous than the possession of a liv- 
ing husband. What unacknowledged terror the wo- 
man must be suffering, to make her eyes sharp enough 
to detect a fact which Sam felt he himself would never 
have found out. He remembered her agitation; her 
frequent glances out of the window ; the evident dis- 
tress which peeped out under all her indifferent 
words. 

Surely these two things, both the arrival of the un- 
known visitor and the watch kept on the house by 
the detective, were parts of an intricate puzzle to un- 
derstand which would give the clew to the mystery of 
Mrs. Weir’s past. 

Sam liked her well enough to hope that all would 
turn out well for her. He admired her for her 
thoughtfulness in sending the girls away, so they 
might not be involved, in the slightest way, in the 
meshes of her own unhappy history. And yet — Why 
had she stayed? Why, since she was plainly on the 
lookout for these occurrences, had she not made an 
excuse to leave the house, if only for a time, so that 
she might escape the evils she feared, and avoid the 
danger of involving others in them? 

True, Mr. Frewen was ill ; but, after all, she owed 
him no devotion ; indeed she affected none. She had 
never posed as a philanthropist. Why should she 
persist in remaining under a roof where she was cer- 
tainly regarded with some suspicion by at least one 
person, unless part of the mystery about her were 
connected with that house itself? 

He worried himself for nearly three hours with 


OUR WIDOW. 


153 


these questions, and then returned from the park, 
where he had been walking toward Cirencester Ter- 
race. 

It was nearly eight o’clock when he got there, hav- 
ing let slip by the family dinner-hour in his own 
home in his wish to set Mrs. Weir’s doubts at rest as 
soon as he could. If she knew the exact measure of 
the danger she was in, she would be the more easily 
able to avert the consequences of it. 

To Sam’s amazement the front door of No. 203 
was opened at the very moment when he was crossing 
the street toward the house, and he saw Mrs. Weir’s 
face disfigured by recent tears, letting out the stran- 
ger, who looked sullen and determined. 

And Sam distinctly heard him say, as he came out : 
“Eemember I must have the jewels!” 

He stopped deliberately when he saw Sam coming, 
and waited at the front of the steps for the young 
man to come up. 

It was clear that Mrs. Weir was afraid he would 
speak to Sam, for she came right out and addressed 
the latter, in a voice which was husky and tired. 

“Come in, come in,” she said. “I have had such 
trouble with Mr. Frewen, Mr. Eitchie! He won’t 
have the nurses. I have had to send them both 
away!” 

A sound from the stranger made Sam, who was 
half-way up the steps, turn and glance at him. It 
was an exclamation of contemptuous derision and dis- 
belief ; and he shrugged his shoulders as he raised his 
hat to Mrs. Weir and walked away. 

Mrs. Weir gave a sigh of relief, and invited Sam 


154 


OUR WIDOW. 


with a gesture to come in. He had been doubtful 
whether he should do so, afraid that she might be 
too tired to see him. 

“ Shall I come round to-morrow early, on my way 
to the city?” he asked, trying at the same time to 
look as if he saw none of the traces of tears on her 
usually pink skin, which now looked haggard and 
yellow. 

“Oh, why to-morrow?” she answered listlessly, as 
she shut the door herself and led him into the dining- 
room. “If you have anything to tell me, tell me 
now. ” 

Sam saw at the first glance round the room that 
the interview which had just taken place between the 
lady and the stranger had been not only a very long, 
but a very exciting one. 

The heavy mahogany table had been pushed out of 
its place ; the table-cloth had been dragged off on to 
the floor; a chair had been overturned. Mrs Weir 
seemed, as she entered the room with him, to note 
these things for the first time. She picked up the 
chair, and said, with a half -hysterical laugh : 

“You can see that there has been a ‘ scene.’ I will 
confess I have had to do a little acting. But I had 
not noticed how realistic my efforts were getting!” 

Sam helped her to put on the table-cloth; and as 
he did so, he said quietly : 

“I went into the empty house, Mrs. Weir. And it 
is true that there is a detective there, and that he is 
watching this house.” 

Mrs. Weir stood a moment, apparently considering 
the bearing of this fact upon some other fact of which 


OUR WIDOW. 155 

she was in possession. After a moment’s pause, she 
said: 

“ Thank you. I was sure of it. But — but — per- 
haps it does not matter now!” 

The last words she seemed to speak to herself rath- 
er than to him. 

She gave no further explanation, but turned the 
conversation by a trivial remark. 

Sam dared ask no questions ; and, seeing that Mrs. 
Weir looked absolutely worn out, he said he knew 
she was dying to get rid of him. “ But how will you 
go on nursing Mr. Frewen without help, if he will 
not have the nurses?” asked he. 

“I shall manage it. One can do everything one 
has to do,” answered she, as she gave him her hand. 

And Sam felt, as he walked away down the street, 
and looking up at the empty house caught sight of 
the head of the detective at the first-floor window, 
that the more he learned about the proceedings at No. 
203 the more mysterious they became. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


With the girls down at Teddington the season be- 
gan somewhat adversely. 

At the very outset, circumstances had concurred to 
make the whole of the party, for one reason or an- 
other, anxious .and depressed. In the first place 
there was deep anxiety about their father. Miss 
Roscoe, who was in the lowest possible spirits, kept 
throwing out dark hints concerning the results of 
leaving an ‘adventuress’ in charge of the house at 
Cirencester Terrace and the precious invalid. 

She had never dared to speak of Mrs. Weir thus 
boldly before, but distance gave her courage. 

Then all the girls were more or less disturbed by 
the scene of the morning; and though conversation 
on the subject of Mrs. Weir and Bradley’s story was 
not possible among them all, on account of Tryphena’s 
violent partnership and Miss Roscoe’ s equally violent 
animosity, the narrative was seldom absent from their 
thoughts on the way down. 

Each girl, moreover, had a separate and secret 
source of disquietude. Tryphena was troubled on ac- 
count of her dear Mrs. Weir, and her own separation 
from her friend. Bab grieved because she had not 
been able to extract from Bradley the required promise 
to come and see her frequently while they were at 
Teddington. “He was very busy, awfully hard- 
156 


OUR WIDOW. 


157 


worked just then,” he said. And Bab’s thoughts re- 
verted at once to the fair-haired woman in the box at 
the theatre. 

As for Molly, although she bore herself with as 
much outward composure as the demure Bab herself, 
she was in truth the most perturbed of the three girls. 
She could not forget, as she would have liked to do, 
that scene with Sam the night before. He had 
indeed taken her by surprise. For it was quite 
true, as he had said, that she had become so used to 
his devotion that she took it as a matter of course, 
and never asked herself whether it would be easy, 
when the time should come, for her to do without 
it. 

And now that the question forced itself upon her, 
although she answered it to herself with the greatest 
readiness in the affirmative, she had a secret sense of 
dissatisfaction under it all, which was, she told her- 
self, dissatisfaction with him, but which really par- 
took a little of the nature of self-reproach. 

Had she always been kind, as kind as he deserved? 
She was annoyed with herself because this question 
would intrude itself into the midst of her annoyance 
with him. It had been most inconsiderate of him, 
when he knew she was in love with somebody else, 
when she had never denied or concealed the fact, to 
make that strong appeal to her emotions on his own 
behalf, the tones of which rang in her ears still. 
What right had he to say things like that? To say 
things which hurt her, cut her to the heart? It was 
horrible to have to hear Sam, dear old Sam, who was 
always so gentle and so kind, speaking as if all his 


158 


OUR WIDOW. 


happiness depended upon her, as if it lay with her 
to make him happy or miserable. 

Why, of course it didn’t! She knew quite well 
that he would fall in love with some other girl as 
soon as she herself was married to Sir Walter, that 
he would marry her, and make her a very good hus- 
band. Molly said this to herself with great deter- 
mination, with a great affectation of cool cynicism and 
knowledge of the world. 

But she didn’t quite like the idea for all that! 

The fact was, that Molly, in spite of the unconven- 
tional liberty she gave herself, or perhaps because of 
it, was very young for her age, having spent little of 
her short time on earth, and little in reflection. She 
did not understand her own heart a bit. Attracted, 
like the innocent little goose she was, by the ex- 
perienced wiles of a practised “ lady-killer, ” she in- 
vested Sir Walter, dreary old roue that he was, with 
a halo of romance which was without any basis of 
reality. 

Knowing nothing of life, except through the fan- 
tastic distortions of a young girl’s vision, she re- 
garded Sam with affection indeed, as the known and 
tried friend whose affection had no surprises : while 
Sir Walter was the fascinating hero of romance with 
possibilities boundless because they were unknown. 

She tried to comfort herself with the thought that 
her marriage with Sir Walter would soon be an ac- 
complished fact, and that then old Sam, with his 
common-sense, would soon console himself. 

But — at this point Molly put up her handkerchief 
hastily, and wiped away a furtive tear. She did not 


OUR WIDOW. 


159 


like hurting Sam, poor old Sam, even if he would get 
over it quickly. 

And so it came to pass that over the first few days 
at Teddington there hung a cloud of depression, and 
that the dull, sultry days with little sunshine, and oc- 
casional rumblings of thunder, and a mist over the 
water, were well in accord with the feelings of the 
household at the cottage. 

Sam never came near them, nor did Bradley Ingle- 
dew. And the two elder girls spent most of their 
time in fashioning themselves new frocks, which were 
to make a “ sensation” when the absent ones did turn 
up, while Tryphena, left to her own resources, since 
she would have none of Miss Boscoe’s society, passed 
her time in a canoe by herself, paddling between the 
lock at Teddington and Hampton Court. 

It did not escape the observant eyes of the girls, 
however, that if their truant courtiers neglected them, 
they had made a new acquisition, “ a mash” they 
called it. 

Day by day, and all day long a neat little skiff hov- 
ered about that strip of quiet water where the lawn 
of “The Cottage,” bordered and shaded by its syca- 
more and its alders, reached down to the river. It 
could not be unintentional, the persistency with which 
the stranger paddled and fished, and rowed and 
sculled, or lay in his boat and smoked, always with- 
in sight of the “ Cottage” lawn and generally with one 
eye upon the house, about which the pretty girls hung 
like bees on a branch. 

Molly and Bab discussed him together. 

“He’s a rough-looking customer,” said Molly. 


160 


OUR WIDOW . 


“ He’s horribly dressed,” said Bab contemptuously. 

“ Looks as if he had bought his flannels second- 
hand, and made his tie himself! I suppose he’s a 
foreigner. No Englishman would dare to turn out 
like that.” 

“ He looks like an Italian, or a Spaniard, or an In- 
dian,” suggested Molly vaguely with a sidelong glance 
at the unknown one, who was at that moment pro- 
ceeding in a leisurely manner, in a punt, under the 
opposite shore. “ And he’ s rather handsome, I think. 
He doesn’t look quite like a cad, does he? In spite 
of his clothes?” 

But Bab would hardly admit so much as that. 

“ Bushranger!” she ejaculated languidly, and 
turned her back in the direction of the stranger. 

“That’s because he looks at Phena, and not at 
you,” said Molly. 

“ Try phena is very welcome to his admiration. I 
only hope she won’t let him scrape acquaintance with 
her, and drag us into it!” 

Molly said nothing. She had a shrewd idea that 
the acquaintance between the stranger and Tryphena 
had already been “scraped,” and having more of her 
younger sister’s confidence than Bab had. 

The fact was that Tryphena, in her solitary canoe 
voyages up and down the river, had had several en- 
counters with the swarthy stranger in the shabby 
clothes. He had happened to meet her one day when 
she was paddling back from Richmond with a canoe- 
ful of Maids of Honor, and he had helped her to 
avoid a danger by directing her attention to a bank 
on to which she was steering. Tryphena, while ac- 


OUR WIDOW . 


161 


knowledging his courtesy with her accustomed brus- 
queiie, had been rather attracted by his manner. 

So that when, on the day after this encounter, he 
had happened to be in the lock with his punt while 
she in her canoe was the only other occupant, it had 
come about quite naturally that he helped her to keep 
the canoe off the side as the water went down, and 
gave her a few hints, very respectfully, on the sub- 
ject of canoe management. 

“I’ve had experience of pretty nearly every sort of 
canoe that’s made,” he explained, in apology for his 
lecture, “ from African reed-canoes to the real Cana- 
dian article, which is not a bit like what you call a 
Canadian canoe up here!” 

“Thanks,” said Tryphena, as she started to paddle 
away through the now open lock-gate, “but I don’t 
suppose I shall ever do it as gracefully as a Eedskin 
Indian!” 

But from the glance the stranger gave at her hand- 
some figure, as she went gliding out through the gate, 
it appeared that he considered her as graceful over it 
as any human being could be. 

And after this there followed many other encoun- 
ters between the swarthy stranger and Tryphena, 
which seemed to be natural enough, but which were 
perhaps too frequent not to betray a little manage- 
ment on the part of the man. Until at last, after an 
awkward half-acquaintance of some days, the time 
arrived when she was able to speak to Molly about 
“ Mr. Brown” by name, with the characteristic com- 
ment that he was “an awfully jolly fellow.” 

“Well,” objected Molly, who thought that it was 
11 


162 


OUR WIDOW 


her duty to make some objection to this picked-up ac- 
quaintance of her younger sister’s, “I wouldn’t make 
friends with anybody I happened to meet like that!” 

Tryphena flushed angrily. 

“ I don’t,” she retorted, “any more than you do! 
Mr. Brown knows all about us, just as if he’d known 
us all our lives!” 

“How does he? It’s like his impudence to pre- 
tend to!” cried Molly. 

“Ho, it isn’t. He heard about us through a 
friend.” 

Tryphena would have stopped short here, but Mol- 
ly would not let her. 

“ What friend?” she asked sharply. 

And at last it came out, not without reluctance on 
Tryphena’ s part, that Mr. Brown was a friend of 
Mrs. Weir’s. 

Then Tryphena fled away, in order that she might 
not hear anything she did not like about her friend. 

For Molly and Bab maintained a reserve on the 
subject of Mrs. Weir, which savored strongly of 
suspicion. And Molly went to confide in Bab the 
information she had just obtained, and both girls 
decided that there was something wrong about Mr. 
Brown, and that any attempt on his part to obtrude 
himself upon them must be promptly frustrated. 

That very afternoon, however, that attempt was 
successfully made. 

They had been at Teddington more than a fort- 
night, and had had on the whole a dull time of it, 
when a cab drove up to the garden gate, and Mrs. 
Weir, fresh, pink, smiling, handsome, and dressed 


OUR WIDOW. 


163 


in a new and most becoming costume of navy-blue 
serge, blue and white striped silk, with wide, lace- 
trimmed muslin collar and cuffs, came up to the 
“ Cottage.” 

Her arrival sent a thrill of excitement through the 
little household. Tryphena went mad with joy, and 
clung to her neck, to the imminent danger of the 
pretty frock. Molly and Bab were quite glad to see 
somebody from town, Bab confessing that the sight 
of a new frock on Mrs. Weir was such joy it made 
you ready to condone anything. Even Miss Roscoe, 
having heard from the servants of the house in town 
that Mr. Erewen was better, was obliged to feel that 
the lady’s coming was a pleasant excitement. 

So they made much of her, and had tea out on the 
lawn in her honor, while she told them that Mr. 
Frewen, though still unable to leave his room, was 
better, and that he had consented to be left in charge 
of the elderly housemaid, while she came down to 
see them. 

“ And how have you been passing your time? I 
had expected, I think, to see you looking better, or 
browner, or something!” she said, as she glanced 
from one to the other of the girls. “Tryphena is the 
only one of you who looks as if she had been enjoy- 
ing herself.” 

The elder girls exchanged looks, and Tryphena 
blushed a little. 

Bab sat up and looked prim. 

“ Tryphena is the only one of us who has been en- 
joying herself,” she said tartly. “Molly and I have 
been simply wretched all the time!” 


164 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Wretched ! How was that?” 

“Oh, it was the weather, I suppose!” said Molly, 
shortly. 

But Miss Roscoe, who, having found her authority 
set at nought more than ever away from the fear of 
“papa,” was rather anxious to “make it up” with 
Mrs. Weir, struck in with a better explanation. 

“The young ladies have been dull,” said she in her 
aggressive voice, “because none of their admirers 
have been to see them!” 

“Admirers!” repeated Bab in a disgusted aside. 

“ Except Tryphena, who has managed to pick one 
up on the river!” 

Tryphena started up. 

“ Really, Miss Roscoe, I wish you would express 
yourself better,” she cried indignantly. “It was a 
friend of Mrs. Weir’s that I met, as I told you, and 
that ought to have been enough for you, or for any- 
body l ” she added with emphasis, glancing at her 
sisters. 

“A friend of mine!” echoed Mrs. Weir. 

But even as she said this, her eyes wandered in the 
direction of a skiff which was coming slowly down 
the middle of the stream. 

“There he is! There he is! How he can speak 
for himself!” shouted Tryphena, as she bounded away 
over the lawn, and began to beckon energetically to 
the young man in the skiff, who at once changed his 
course, and brought his boat in a few swift strokes 
close under the velvety edge of the lawn. 

Mrs. Weir got up from her basket chair, and went 
down to the water’s edge, with a smiling face of rec- 


OUR WIDOW ; 


165 


ognition. Molly and Bab were honestly glad that 
their sister’s stray acquaintance had really some cre- 
dentials. At a sign from Mrs. Weir, they rose also, 
and followed her to the spot where she was stooping 
to shake hands with the stranger. 

“ Tie up your boat, and come up here, ” she was 
saying in her most friendly and bewitching manner. 
“ I must introduce you formally to the Misses 
Frewen.” 

“ Don’t say ‘The Misses Frewen,’ as if we were 
school-mistresses,” protested Molly. “We’re always 
known as the Frewen girls.” 

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Weir, smiling still more, 
“to ‘the Frewen girls’ let me introduce you, Mr. ” 

And to the general confusion, Mrs. Weir stopped 
short. She was introducing him as an old friend of 
hers, but — she had forgotten his name! 

The elder girls exchanged looks, but the pause had 
hardly lasted more than a second or two when the 
stranger cut it short by saying, in a very deep and 
pleasant voice : 

“It must come out. You are ashamed, Mrs. Weir, 
aren’t you, to have to introduce a friend of yours un- 
der such a modest name as ‘Brown’?” 

“It was not that,” returned Mrs. Weir readily, 
though with slightly flushed cheeks, “ I was wonder- 
ing whether, in the years since I met you last, 
you had adopted one of the new double-barrelled 
names.” 

And so the matter passed off with a laugh. But 
when the two elder girls were alone together, Molly 
said to Bab : 


166 


OUR WIDOW . 


“Do you believe people ever really forget the 
names of their old friends, Bab?” 

And Bab, with a scornful little toss of her head, 
answered : 

“ Of course not. Either Mr. Brown is not an old 
friend of Mrs. Weir’s, or else — his name is not Mr. 
Brown !” 

There was a pause, and when Molly spoke again 
it was in a whisper : 

“Do you think, Bab, his name is — Max Lowen- 
stein?” 

“ Sh-sh-sh-sh!” said Bab. “We musn’t say so, 
even if we think so — yet!” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


There was a strange attraction about Mr. Brown. 

Even Molly and Bab, full of suspicion as they were 
concerning this mysterious person, forgot the shabby 
flannels, the ill-made tie, when he was talking to 
them in that peculiarly pleasant deep voice of his. 
And they found that there was some excuse for Try- 
phena, whose behavior betrayed to her sisters that 
the handsome stranger had made a strong impression 
upon her fancy. 

She was much quieter than usual* that summer 
afternoon, sitting back in her long garden chair, play- 
ing with a rose, looking a very Juno in majesty of 
figure, and in face a very child. 

Mr. Brown was paying a very long call indeed. To 
do him justice, he had made several offers to go, say- 
ing he felt sure he was trying their patience too much, 
and that they wished him at the bottom of the river. 
But Mrs. Weir had always encouraged him to stay, 
and the girls, in spite of the vague suspicions of the 
two elder ones, were nothing loth. 

So Mr. Brown stayed on till the shadows had grown 
long upon the grass, and until the boats which had 
gone up the stream that afternoon began to come back 
in the cool breezes of the evening. 

It was Saturday, and the river was thronged. 

“Does this sort of thing seem tame to you, Mr. 
167 


168 


OUR WIDOW. 


Brown, after the adventurous life you seem to have 
led abroad?” asked Tryphena, with a start and a 
slight flush, as, turning her head, she found that 
Mrs. Weir had got up from her chair and sauntered 
down to the water’ s edge, so that she and the visitor 
were left to a tete-a-tete. 

Molly and Bab had retreated some minutes before, 
to exchange confidences about Mr. Brown and Mrs. 
Weir’s encouragement of him. 

“Not a bit,” said he. “The life of movement is 
all very well in its way. But there comes a time to 
every man when he is ready to exchange it for the 
life of peace.” 

“And are you going to settle down in England 
now?” 

“I came back with that intention,” he answered 
gravely. “But circumstances have occurred to make 
me change my mind already.” 

And there came suddenly into his dark face a look 
which frightened the girl a little. 

“You are going away on your travels again then?” 

He threw a quick glance at Mrs. Weir, who was 
out of hearing, standing at the water’s edge, throw- 
ing bread to a great white swan, which had glided 
up the stream under the bank, in answer to her in- 
vitation. 

“Yes,” he answered shortly. 

“ Which is it you are tired of?” asked Tryphena, 
rendered curious by that glance at Mrs. Weir, “the 
people or the country?” 

“ The people, ” said he at once. 

“And the men or the women?” persisted the girl. 


OUR WIDOW. 


169 


Again he answered without hesitation : 

“ The women.” 

“ That’s not nice of you, Mr. Brown, to say 
that!” 

“ Oh, V ve been so long away in the wilds, Miss 
Frewen, that I’ve forgotten how to be ‘nice.’ In the 
wilds, you know, among men, it’s more important 
that one should be sincere!” 

“ That’s nasty again! Don’t you think women 
appreciate sincerity ?” 

“ They appreciate nothing so little, I think. 
Otherwise, why should their influence be ruin to the 
most upright men, turning straightforward men into 
liars, and honest men into thieves?” 

Mr. Brown spoke with so much passion that Try- 
phena sat up, a little shocked. And she noticed that 
again Mr. Brown glanced at Mrs. Weir. 

“But that’s only wicked women,” said the girl. 
“We are not all as bad as that! You wouldn’t think 
so hardly, would you, of me, or of my sisters, or — or 
Mrs. Weir?” 

Unconsciously she had raised her voice to its usual 
robust tone. 

“ What’ s that about Mrs. Weir?” asked the lady, 
turning round, and showing, perhaps, the least little 
trace of anxiety in her smooth pink face. 

Tryphena sprang out of her chair, and bounded 
across the lawn to her. 

“I don’t want to talk to Mr. Brown anymore,” 
said she, with a heightened color, as she seized her 
friend’ s hand, bread for the swans and all, and began 
to caress it with hers. “He doesn’t believe in the 


OUR WIDOW . 


170 

goodness of women, while I know they are good, some 
of them !” 

And she hung affectionately about the lady, without 
a glance at Mr. Brown. He got up and approached 
them with a contrite air, while Tryphena saw Mrs. 
Weir throw at him a glance full of anger and alarm. 

“ What have you been saying to the child ?” she 
asked shortly. 

“ Nothing that would have been better unsaid, I 
think,” he answered steadily, meeting her eyes with 
boldness. “I was telling her of the bad effects 
women, some women, of course, have on men.” 

“ And I could tell a companion story of the evil in- 
fluence men, some men, have on women.” 

There was a pause, and the man and the woman 
exchanged looks. The woman entreated; the man 
defied. It was Mrs. Weir who spoke next; and her 
voice had a new note, which made Tryphena raise her 
head to look in the handsome face. 

“ But we expect, we hope, that a man will be as 
ready to yield to the influence of the good as to the 
influence of the evil.” 

Mr. Brown said nothing to this, but that he under- 
stood the words to have some hidden meaning was 
clear from the half-angry, half-guilty look on his 
face as he glanced at Tryphena, and then turned to 
stare out at the river. 

A boat coming rapidly down the middle of the 
stream attracted his attention. 

“ There is a friend of yours, Mrs. Weir, I think,” 
said he suddenly. “Mr. — Bitchie, I think you said 
his name was.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


m 


Tryphena looked up, and, to her intense amaze- 
ment, recognized Sam in the boat, which was now 
almost opposite the lawn. 

“Sam!” she cried, aghast. “And — somebody 
with him ! Not one of his sisters ! What will Molly 
say?” 

“ Molly will say that he is very welcome to go out 
with whom he pleases!” cried a voice behind her. 

And Molly herself, very pale, very quiet, with a 
little less curve than usual about the lines of her 
pretty red mouth, stood twisting the stalk of the rose 
Tryphena had dropped, and staring at the pair in the 
boat with dull eyes. 

“It’s too bad of him!” whispered Bab soothingly, 
slipping her hand through Molly’s arm. 

“No, it isn’t,” retorted Molly sharply. • “Why 
shouldn’t he do as he likes? I mean to!” she added 
fiercely. 

And without another word Molly turned and 
walked into the house with rapid steps. 

Bab was not long left behind. Her red mouth 
began to grow firm with resolution ; and after a few 
seconds spent in deliberation, she ran into the house 
after her sister. Passing through the open French 
window of the drawing-room, she saw Molly, her face 
red and her hands trembling, down on her knees 
before a writing-table, scribbling a letter with so 
much rapidity and fire that the ink spluttered up and 
the pen stuck in the paper. Bab watched her for a 
moment in silence. Molly knew she was there, but 
did not look up. Then, still without a word, Bab 
rushed out of the room, if indeed she could be said to 


172 


OUR WIDOW . 


rush, so graceful were all her movements, snatched up 
a hat in the hall and fastened it on her head, taking 
care to glance in the hall mirror as she did so. 

To choose a pair of white gloves from a heap in the 
drawer of the hall table was the work of another few 
seconds ; then she took up a sunshade which was shot 
pink and yellow, and slipped quietly out of the house, 
ignoring the question addressed to her by Miss Bos- 
coe through the dining-room window as to where she 
was going. 

And as soon as she was outside the garden gate, 
she dropped her dignity and ran fast along the road in 
the direction of the lock. 

Anybody but Bab would have reached the lock- 
gates with a flushed and heated face, starting eyes, 
and labored breath. For although the sun had gone 
down, the air was still warm. But slender, pale Bab 
was not like other people; and she arrived at the 
lock-gates with only a becoming tinge of pink color 
in her cheeks, panting just sufficiently for her red lips 
to be parted and her chest to rise and fall most 
prettily. 

Standing between the lock on one side and the 
rollers on the other, scanning the occupants of the 
crowd of boats with an eager scrutiny, Bab was an 
object of much admiration to them, of which she was 
not wholly unconscious, in spite of the anxiety from 
which she was suffering. 

One of the most conspicuous figures among the 
group of girls about the lock, Bab had, as usual, got 
her effect by the simplest means. A well-cut skirt of 
navy-blue serge ; a blouse of yellowish muslin and in- 


OUR WIDOW. 


173 


sertion mounted on pale pink silk; a hat of rough 
straw trimmed with the muslin and a bunch of cher- 
ries — these were the details of a costume which 
looked the prettiest within reach of the eyes round 
about the lock. 

At last Bab caught sight of the person she wanted, 
and all the other men felt envious when she came 
close to the side of the lock and addressed that person 
as “ Sam.” 

Sam himself looked up with a face as eager as her 
own. 

“ I want to speak to you, Sam. It’s important,” 
said she in a low voice. 

From the rapidity with which he answered her 
she could see that he was as anxious for the inter- 
view as she was. 

“All right,” said he quickly. “Wait till we get 
through the lock, and I’ll come ashore for a minute. 
You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” he went on to the 
girl who sat in the stern and steered for him. 

She answered by a quiet nod, the nod of pleasant, 
easy intimacy which does not get jealous, thought 
Bab, as she glanced at the girl and felt angrier with 
Sam than ever. For if he wanted to make Molly 
just jealous enough, he should have brought some- 
body who didn’t matter, and not this well-turned- 
out, “nice” girl, who looked like a real rival as dis- 
tinct from a mere manufactured one ! 

Bab retreated to the shore, and waited. The skiff 
came through the lock, glided to the landing-stage, 
and Sam jumped out, with another easy nod to his 
companion. 


174 


OUR WIDOW. 


Bab, loyal to her sister with all her heart, felt so 
angry that the first thing she said when she and Sam 
were alone together, walking up the road, was uttered 
in a voice of exceeding tartness, without any diplo- 
matic opening: 

“ Who’s that girl?” 

Sam replied, however, quite composedly : 

“ Never mind that girl. What did you want to see 
me about?” 

“Well, that is one of the things.” 

Sam stopped short, and turned on his heel. 

“Oh, if that’s all, I think you might have waited 
till some more convenient season.” 

“It isn’t all — by any means. But it’s important 
too. Do you know what you’re doing to Molly?” 

“Molly and her doings don’t concern me now!” 

He said it beautifully, with an affectionate glance 
in the direction of the boat he had just left. Bab 
stared at him with her gray -blue eyes, and when she 
spoke, her voice trembled : 

“ I never thought to hear you say such a thing as 
that, Sam!” 

Sam thrust his hands into his pockets. 

“My dear Bab, no more did I! But there are 
limits to the endurance of any ass; and you never 
know how near you are to those limits till you get 
there!” 

“Then — then you don’t care — you really don’t 
care — for her any longer?” 

Sam did not reply at once. But when he did, his 
voice was as steady, and his tone as calm, as ever. 

“Not in the way I did.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


175 


“But you would like to see her happy?” 

“ Of course.” 

“Well, you won’t then,” retorted Bab fiercely, 
visiting upon him all the wilfulness, all the errors of 
judgment, of Molly herself, and speaking as if he 
had been a villain too degraded for human associa- 
tion. “For you’ve made her more wild about this 
Sir Walter than she was before. She hasn’t seen 
him for days : hasn’t even answered his letters. And 
now — at this moment, she’s on her knees writing to 
him. And you may expect to hear of her marrying 
him any day!” 

Having uttered this speech with withering re- 
proach, Bab gazed steadily upon Sam, and waited 
for a faltering, humble reply. 

But she got nothing of the sort. He heard her 
out, with his head raised a little, and his gaze fixed 
on a tree. And after a short pause, as if he had 
expected more of the harangue, he said quietly : 

“ My dear girl, what of that? Isn’t she in love with 
the man? I understood she had been for a long time !” 

“In love!” echoed Bab scornfully, “with that old 
bag of bones! It’s ridiculous!” 

“I quite agree with you. But if it’s nevertheless 
a fact, what can we do?” 

Bab looked at him for a few moments as if uncer- 
tain whether she had heard aright. Then she said 
passionately : 

“Do you suppose she’ll be in love with him when 
she’s married him?” 

That question did shake Sam’s sang-froid a little. 
He answered with a catch in his voice : 


176 


OUR WIDOW. 


“No, I don’t suppose so. But who can help that 
either?” 

“ You could, if you choose!” 

Then Sam turned and faced her squarely. 

“If I choose to go dangling on as I have done, 
letting her make a fool of me as long as she liked, on 
the chance of her dropping into my arms when this 
man is tired of her? That is what you mean, I sup- 
pose, Bab. But I don’t choose. I would have put 
up with anything if there had been a chance of her 
opening her eyes, and caring for me, and taking all 
the devotion I have to give for ever so little of hers. 
But to be used as she has used me indefinitely, giving 
all and getting nothing or worse than nothing, that is 
not possible, Bab, to any man who is a man at all.” 

Bab was astonished. Quiet old Sam was “coming 
out.” She admired him for it; listening to him, she 
felt the blood mounting to her cheeks, and asked her- 
self if it were really possible that Molly could hold 
out against a love like his. 

“ Sam,” she said at last, almost in a whisper, “ why 
don’t you talk to her like this? Why don’t you 
speak out, and let her have it straight from the 
shoulder, as you are doing now to me? She would 
listen, I’m sure she would!” 

“But you seel have tried, and she didn’t listen. 
So there’s an end of it, Bab. I’m beginning to think 
I should like a little devotion myself, for a change.” 

“ And you’re going to marry the girl in the boat?” 

“Most likely. If she’ll have me.” 

Bab heaved a melancholy sigh. 

“Of course she will. There’s only one girl alive, 


OUR WIDOW. 


177 


Sam, who’d be such an idiot as not to have you if she 
got the chance!” 

There was a pause, a very short one; then Sam 
said quickly : 

“Now there’s something I want to ask you. Who 
was the man I saw on your lawn just now? What is 
his name? And how did you come to know him?” 

“We didn’t. He came to know us! His name is 
Brown — at least he says it is. And Mrs. Weir is 
throwing him at Tryphena’s head!” 

“ What?” 

“It’s true, it is indeed. Molly would tell you the 
same. He admires her, I think. He has been al- 
ways about the river just here ever since we came 
down. And he scraped acquaintance with her when 
she was marauding about in her canoe. And to-day 
Mrs. Weir came down and saw him, and invited him 
to come on the lawn. And he’s rather nice. But 
there’s something curious about his manner to Mrs. 
Weir and hers to him. She seems afraid of him, 
Sam, she really does. And he is always saying 
things to her or at her, as if — as if — his talk had two 
meanings — one for us, and the other for her! Do 
you understand what I mean, Sam?” 

He nodded, and looked down, scraping up the 
gravel with his boot with great care, and then flatten- 
ing it down again. 

“Do you know anything about him, Sam? You 
look as if you did!” 

“ I have seen him at .Cirencester Terrace, that’s 
all.” 

“At our house? When?” 

12 


178 


OUR WIDOW. 


“The day you came down here. He had a long, 
and I should say exciting interview with Mrs. Weir.” 

Bab stared at him for a few moments, and then 
spoke in a very decided tone : 

“Look here, I know there’s some mystery about 
her and this man. And I have an idea what it is. 
And I’ve made up my mind to go up to town to-night 
and speak to papa about it. She’s got poor old papa 
under her thumb, and Edgar too, as she gets every- 
body.” 

“ To-night! You’d better wait till to-morrow.” 

“I can’t!” said Bab, stamping her foot. “I can’t 
rest. I suppose you can’t throw over that girl in the 
boat and take me up?” 

“ Of course I can’t.” 

“Then I’ll get Bradley to take me up. I know 
where his houseboat is; Mr. Brown has seen it; he 
described it exactly — done up with scarlet geraniums 
and white marguerites — and very smart with muslin 
curtains and — and a lady in black.” And Bab’s 
voice changed a little. “ I mean with people on it. 
I’ll get him to take me up.” 

“ Well, my dear girl, you can’t go to Staines and 
then up to town to-night. The thing’s not possible.” 

“I’ll get as far as Staines at any rate,” replied 
Bab with determination. 

Sam began to see that there was more reason for 
poor Bab’s unrest than she would have admitted. 

“Look here,” said he, “you can’t go to Staines to- 
night. It’s too late. It’s six o’clock. It would be 
a wild-goose chase. Come up to town with us, if 
you like ” 


OUR WIDOW. 179 

“What? Play 6 gooseberry ’ ?” exclaimed Bab in 
horror. “No, thank you, Sam. Good-night!” • 

And before he had time to exchange another word 
with the wilful young woman she had flitted away up 
the road, and left him to his own reflections. 

These were of so serious a cast, acquainted as he 
was with the wayward nature of the girl, that he 
wrote a few lines in pencil on a spare half-sheet of 
an old letter in his pocket ; folded it into a cocked 
hat, and gave a boy sixpence to take it to “ The Cot- 
tage. ” The note was directed to “ Mrs. Weir, ” and the 
boy was directed to ask for her and to deliver it into 
no hands but hers. 

Sam was conscious of the apparent absurdity of his 
confiding in a person in whom it was impossible for 
him to have entire trust. But through all his doubts 
of Mrs. Weir there rose a dogged belief in that some- 
thing good in the woman, which would not let a girl 
come to hideous grief if an effort on her part could 
prevent it. 


CHAPTER XX. 


Poor little Bab! Queen as she looked, as she sub- 
sided into her usual graceful walk when she had 
turned the corner of the road, and was out of Sam’s 
sight, she was really the most miserable of girls. 
Bradley had not once been to see her since they came 
down to Teddington, and the last time she had seen 
him, on the day they left town, his visit had been 
most unsatisfactory in Bab’s eyes. He had come to 
tell the girls what he had heard about Mrs. Weir, 
and he had gone without making any opportunity of 
seeing Bab alone, for so much as a single moment. 

This had cost Bab a keen pang, but she had ex- 
pected him to come to The Cottage on the first oppor- 
tunity to make it up. And now he had let a whole 
fortnight go by without coming at all ! 

What could it mean? 

And Bab brooded over that last meeting — real 
meeting, when they came home from the theatre to- 
gether; and she twisted every word Bradley had 
uttered into a dozen different meanings, and tortured 
herself at one moment by telling herself he was tired 
of her, that he really liked that horrid dancing 
woman better than her; and at another there would 
come into her heart a sweet sense that it was she, 
Bab, for whom he really cared, and that those words 
which had escaped his lips as he tried to kiss her, 
180 


OUR WIDOW . 181 

expressed the true feelings he had for her, and her 
alone. 

But then — why did he not come? 

She asked herself this question a dozen times a 
day ; and the thought came into her mind almost as 
often that she would go and find out where his house- 
boat was, and pay him a surprise visit. 

But at this point in her reflections there always 
rose up an obstacle, an intangible something, to re- 
strain her from this course of action. 

A year ago wayward Bab had thought nothing of hir- 
ing a boat and getting herself rowed up to the side of 
the houseboat, whence, after attracting Bradley’s at- 
tention by a wave of her Japanese paper sunshade, she 
had easily allowed herself to be coaxed into getting 
on board the houseboat itself, to consume strawberries 
until she was ready to be rowed down the river to 
The Cottage by the devoted Bradley. 

But a change had come, gradually, imperceptibly, 
in the girl’s feelings. She could still propose to do 
these daring things, but she could no longer carry 
them out. In truth, though she did not know it, she 
was hovering over the border line between the irre- 
sponsibility of the overgrown child, and the strong 
impulses and feelings of the passionate woman. 

So that while she thought she was only amusing 
herself by a flirtation with Bradley, she was really 
nourishing in her breast a passion the strength of 
which she never guessed. Flippant, frivolous Bab, 
with her lip-shrewdness and her lip-levity, had a 
heart beating tumultuously under her white breast: 
only, unluckily for herself, she never guessed it. 


182 


OUR WIDOW. 


Now, unhappily, her real wish to find out more 
about the mystery concerning Mrs. Weir and Mr. 
Brown had furnished her with an excuse for going in 
search of Bradley, instead of waiting for him to come 
in search of her. 

Bradley, who knew all about Max Lowenstein, 
could tell her whether Mr. Brown answered to the 
description of that specious adventurer ; and if he did, 
as Bab believed, what could be more natural than 
that she should ask Bradley to go up to town with 
her, to tell Mr. Frewen with his own lips what sort 
of people these were who had got into his home. 

Trembling with excitement, Bab slipped into the 
house by one of the French windows, and ran up- 
stairs to change her dress for one she considered more 
becoming. 

Ten minutes later she was on her way to the rail- 
way station. 

Nobody less determined than Bab would have mas- 
tered the difficulties of that late journey from Ted- 
dington to Staines. 

However, the determined Bab accomplished them, 
and found herself, a few minutes past eight o' clock, 
being rowed by a waterman across the silent river 
toward the spot where Bradley's houseboat was 
stationed. 

Bab's heart beat fast. It was still quite light 
enough for her to see the rows of red and white flowers 
which Bradley had chosen that year for the distin- 
guishing mark of The Zephyr. But it was also just 
dark enough for the J apanese paper lanterns, which 
followed the outline of the houseboat, and which 


OUR WIDOW . 


183 


were all lighted, to glow picturesquely in the black 
shadows of the trees on the bank behind. There 
were lights in the windows too, glowing softly behind 
red shades, and veiled by the drawn muslin curtains. 

Sounds of laughter; a confused babble of talk; the 
twang of a banjo — all these came across the water to 
Bab’s ears from the stern of the house-boat, where, 
veiled by a film of muslin hangings which gave the 
sense of privacy, without the reality of it, to those 
within, a merry group were lounging. 

With her eyes fixed on the indistinct forms, Bab 
came on. She presently distinguished Bradley, in a 
lounge coat, cigarette in mouth, as usual; and her 
heart gave a great leap at the sight. And suddenly 
she wished she had not come. She had almost given 
the boatman the order to row back, seized by a new 
impulse of terror at the thought of meeting her lover 
again, and of being perhaps, what she had never been 
before, unwelcome. 

But another stroke of the oars had brought her 
nearer; and she recognized the makeweight, another 
man whom she knew slightly, and — the woman who 
had occupied the box at the Haymarket on the night 
of her visit. 

Yes, there was no doubt about it : the little plump 
woman, with the obviously dyed canary -colored hair, 
again dressed in black, leaning back in her cushioned 
lounging-chair with all the air of being quite at 
home, was Minnie Haarlem, the burlesque actress 
and dancer. 

The certainty of what she had dreaded for the 
moment broke down Bab’s powers of self-command. 


184 


OUR WIDOW. 


She cried “Stop!” to the boatman in a voice so 
shrill that one of the party on the houseboat drew 
back the curtains and looked out. 

“Why, it’s Bab Frewen!” cried a voice which she 
recognized as that of the makeweight. 

Instantly there was a stir, and a chorus of voices : 

“The d — !” “Not possible!” “What a bore!” 

Subdued as these exclamations were, Bab’s quick 
ears caught them. But it was too late to turn back; 
too late to do anything but to put the best face possi- 
ble on a bad business. She decided upon the line 
she should take in the few moments still left before 
her boat swam alongside the houseboat. 

In the circle of lamplight which she had just en- 
tered, Bab, in her pale beauty, made a curious and 
striking picture. Dressed in black, like her rival, 
Bab wore her sombre garb with a difference. While 
Miss Minnie Haarlem wore the theatrical black satin, 
with many frills of crumpled chiffon , Bab’s frock of 
black merveilleux was made quite plainly, with soft 
full sleeves, the bodice slightly full in front, and 
trimmed with hanging drops of jet. Her large black 
lace hat had a brim picturesquely bent, and under- 
neath, resting on the fair hair, which was less gold 
than a sort of silvery fawn color, was a huge rosette 
of crimson silk, the one touch of vivid color which 
Bab so frequently affected. 

“I hope I’m not disturbing everybody,” she said 
in her quiet, deliberate tones, as she put out a little 
hand and arm neatly gloved to the elbow in black 
suede , and rested it on the side of the houseboat. 
“But I’ve come with a message, an important mes- 


OUR WIDOW. 


185 


sage for you, Bradley, which I promised to deliver 
to-night. ” 

Bradley had come to the opening in the curtains, 
and was holding out his hand. He was very ner- 
vous, and when he spoke he stammered. It was 
also evident that he was making ineffectual efforts to 
hide Minnie Haarlem from her sight by interposing 
his own person between the two women. 

But he could not cope with Bab. As soon as she 
had taken his proffered hand, she sprang up, still 
holding it, and in the most disconcertingly graceful 
manner possible stepped on to the houseboat. 

As she did so, she took in the whole of the scene 
with one swift glance. Minnie Haarlem, with her 
round, powdered face and inexpressive, snub fea- 
tures, settling herself with an air of impudent, quiet 
defiance, back in a nest of scarlet and gold cushions. 
Bradley, with a face full of unmistakable terror, 
shuffling about, twisting his mustache, and filling up 
what would have been an awkward pause by inane 
remarks about the heat of the day and the coolness of 
the evening. The makeweight, broadly smiling, and 
evidently expecting a “scene.” The remaining man 
turned quickly to Miss Haarlem, and tried to engage 
her in conversation. 

Minnie, however, did not want to talk. She wanted 
to watch. 

“Don’t chatter now,” she observed coolly. “Give 
me a cigarette.” 

Delighted to find her an occupation, the man 
obeyed. Meanwhile Bab was saying to Bradley : 


186 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Pm not going to detain you long, as you have so 
many visitors. Let us go up to the top a minute, 
while I tell you the message.” 

“Oh, ah, yes, yes — oh, of course, if you like!” 
stammered Bradley, whose face was various colors 
by turns. 

Already Bab, without a glance behind, was on her 
way up, very nimbly, but without hurry, showing 
discreet glimpses of high-heeled brown morocco shoes 
and open-work brown silk stockings, and very slim 
ankles. 

Bradley was hurrying up after her, when Minnie 
Haarlem’s voice, speaking in a drawling but suffi- 
ciently loud tone, called him imperiously back. 

“Bradley, wait a minute. I want a light.” 

Bradley took another step upward, affecting not 
to hear. 

“Bradley,” repeated the voice with an added note 
of rather shrewish displeasure: “I want a light. 
Are you coming, or ” 

With a muttered exclamation which had better be 
left to the imagination, the hapless Bradley turned 
and came obediently down. 

Miss Haarlem was still leaning back in her cush- 
ions, but she now held an unlighted cigarette between 
her lips. As soon as Bradley stood, frowning, before 
her, she tilted back her head a little, protruding her 
lips, with the cigarette. He thrust his hand angrily 
into his pocket, and took out a gold match-box, say- 
ing below his breath : 

“What are you behaving like this for? What the 
d — l’s the matter with you?” 


OUR WIDOW ; 


187 


But Miss Haarlem took no notice of his remarks, 
did not even look at him. 

“No, I don’t want a match,” drawled she. “Light 
it from your own cigarette. ” 

Out of patience, Bradley tossed the match-box into 
her lap. 

“I shan’t,” said he shortly, turning away. 

But her next words, uttered no longer with a drawl, 
brought him quickly back again. 

“ You will, dear boy, or ” 

He did not wait for her to finish. With another 
word half -uttered, half -swallowed, he bent over her 
as he was commanded to do, and let her take a light 
for her own cigarette from the one in his mouth. 

“You she-devil!” he growled out as he withdrew 
his heated face from the neighborhood of hers. 

But Miss Haarlem only laughed lazily, as she 
turned with a satisfied smile to the young fellow 
beside her. 

“Now you may chatter, if you like!” she gra- 
ciously remarked. 

By this time Bradley had already joined Bab on 
the roof of the houseboat. 

The girl had witnessed the little scene between him 
and Minnie Haarlem and had understood its meaning. 
Miss Haarlem had meant to make her jealous -- and in 
this she had succeeded; she had also meant to make 
Bab show her jealousy; but this, Bab said to herself 
with an impulse of passionate pride, she should never 
do! 

Poor, wilful Bab was receiving her first lesson in 
the disadvantages of that borderland between strict 


188 


OUR WIDOW. 


conventional propriety and flagrant Boliemianism in 
which it had been her delight to wander. She was 
in a wild tumult of feeling; but her pride enabled 
her to conceal this, and to receive with apparent cool- 
ness her shamefaced lover. It was upon her that 
Bradley turned his wrath now. 

“ What on earth do you mean by this move, Bab?” 
he asked impatiently. “ Surely you might know 
better than to do a thing like this. Look at the in- 
fernally awkward position you put yourself and me 
and everybody in!” 

Nobody was more entirely conscious of this fact 
than Bab herself. She had the sensj to see that it 
would be madness to open the subject of his fickle- 
ness, his deceit now, with the other woman almost 
or perhaps quite within earshot. So putting strong 
constraint upon herself, she said, smoothing her long 
gloves as calmly as if nothing had happened of an 
exciting nature : 

“It couldn’t be helped, unfortunately. As I told 
you, I had an important message.” 

“Message!” ejaculated Bradley with contemptuous 
incredulity. 

“Yes,” went on Bab imperturbably. “I have just 
seen Sam Kitchie. And he wants to know, and I 
want to know, what this Max Lowenstein was like 
who was mixed up in the ‘Pangola Beef’ business. 
Because there is a man who calls himself Brown 
hanging about Mrs. Weir, and she's throwing Try- 
phena at his head.” 

“What!” 

“ It’s quite true. Did you know Max Lowenstein?” 


OUR WIDOW. 


189 


“ I never saw him, but I have seen portraits of him, 
and I think I might recognize him by them, if it were 
the man himself.” 

“ Then you must come and see, ” said Bab, rising 
quickly from the seat she had taken, and holding out 
her hand. “You see,” she added, with the first 
touch of personal feeling she had shown, “ I have not 
detained you long from — from your friends.” 

But Bradley was too much afraid of a scene, a 
collision, to be really grateful. 

“Oh, yes, yes, certainly. Come along!” he cried, 
with affected buoyancy, as he made way for her to go 
down. “I ? ll be sure and find out if I can.” 

“Thank you,” said Bab, as he came down. 

The group in the stern had broken up, and Miss 
Haarlem, with a curiously hard look on her face, was 
standing, cigarette in hand, watching Bab come down. 
And the makeweight and the other man, foreseeing 
an encounter of some sort, proceeded to make their 
way rapidly into the interior of the boat. 

“ It’s too bad of Bradley to forget to introduce us, 
Miss Erewen,” she said, blinking up at Bab through 
her light eyelashes, and speaking with a set smile on 
her face. “ You’ve seen me on the stage, I dare say 
— Minnie Haarlem, I call myself on the boards.” 

“ Oh, yes, I have heard of your beautiful dancing, 
of course; everybody has,” replied Bab in a firm 
voice. 

“But that’s not my real name. We like to keep 
up the ‘Miss,’ you know, even when we are really 
‘Mrs.’ ” 

“Miss Erewen doesn’t want to know that!” inter- 


190 


OUR WIDOW. 


rupted Bradley from above, with a note of terror in 
his voice. 

Minnie Haarlem blinked np at him with malicious 
enjoyment, and went on : 

“ But it’s always interesting, isn’t it, to know what 
our real names are? And it may be interesting to 
you, Miss Frewen, to know that my real name is 
Minnie Ingledew, and that I’m Bradley’s wife.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


Bab, thanks to that splendid self-command of hers, 
heard this sensational announcement with outward 
calmness. She neither started nor changed counte- 
nance perceptibly, nor uttered a cry. 

But an acute observer like Miss Haarlem could 
probably detect that the young girl’s slight figure 
wavered a little as she turned round instinctively to 
read confirmation or contradiction of what she had 
just heard in the eyes of Bradley himself. 

But he had disappeared. 

This fact spoke volumes, and Bab staggered per- 
ceptibly as she turned again, and made a step forward 
in the direction of the boat which had brought her. 

Minnie laughed, harshly, mockingly. 

“I’m afraid I’ve startled you a little,” she said. 
“ But really it’s not my fault. It all comes of Brad- 
ley’s pernicious habit of passing himself off as a 
bachelor.” 

“ And of yours of passing yourself off as a single 
woman,” said Bab quietly. 

Minnie laughed again. 

“ Oh, well, that is almost a duty in our profession. 
And, you know, Miss Erewen, that girls who come 
to see men at this time in the evening, unchaperoned, 
are not generally very particular as to whether their 
men friends are bachelors or not!” 

191 


192 


OUR WIDOW. 


These words were uttered in such a tone as to be 
an insult; and Bab’s pale cheeks grew pink, and she 
bit her lips. 

Suddenly, from the black water outside the house- 
boat, a woman’s round, full voice broke pleasantly 
upon their ears. 

“ What is that? What is that? Unchaperoned? 
No, the naughty girl outran her chaperon a little, 
that’s all.” 

And Bab, starting violently, though this escaped 
the notice of Minnie, who was peering into the dark- 
ness outside, recognized the voice of Mrs. Weir, who 
had evidently been waiting alongside the houseboat, 
and who had seized the opportunity of making her 
presence known at exactly the right moment. 

Bab, with an impulse of gratitude, was too clever 
not to take full advantage of the way of escape offered 
to her. Looking out into the second rowing-boat, in 
which Mrs. Weir sat, she nodded with apparent com- 
posure. 

“ Well, you weren’t long in catching me up,” she 
said. “ I have my message already through, and I’m 
ready to come back if you are.” 

“The sooner the better,” replied Mrs. Weir, hold- 
ing out her hand. “We haven’t much time before 
the last train goes.” 

And with a bow to the bewildered but still only 
half -suspicious Minnie, Mrs. Weir helped Bab to get 
into the boat in which she herself had come across 
from the shore. 

They paid the second boatman, and were- rowed 
along to the bank in silence. 


OUR WIDOW. 


193 


It was not until they had landed that Bab said very 
quietly : 

“ I ought to thank you, Mrs. Weir; I do thank 
you. But — how did you know? What made you 
come?” 

“A note from Sam Bitchie,” answered Mrs. Weir, 
in a less cordial tone than she had used by the house- 
boat. “He asked me to follow you, to look after 
you. But — excuse my speaking frankly — I think you 
hardly deserve it. A young girl who sets so little 
value on her own reputation can hardly expect that 
others should take much pains to preserve it for 
her.” 

Never, surely, was reproof better deserved. Bab, 
down in her inmost heart, knew this. But sore as 
she was, smarting, burning with shame and some- 
thing more, she could not bear it. That Mrs. Weir, 
the woman whose influence she feared, mistrusted, 
should dare to speak to her so! Her anger smould- 
ered within her, and she told herself that this latest 
action of the widow’s was after all only another proof 
that she was a spy, getting hold of every member of 
the household, and throwing her toils about them for 
purposes of her own. 

Once inside the station, therefore, Bab took a bold 
course. Turning to Mrs. Weir, she said in a firm 
voice : 

“I am going up to town, Mrs. Weir, to my father’s 
house.” 

She had got into the train by which she was 
to travel to London, when Mrs. Weir’s face ap- 
peared at the window of the carriage, and the 
13 


194 


OUR WIDOW. 


next moment Mrs. Weir herself was sitting beside 
her. 

“ I hope you don’t mind my travelling with you. 
You know Mr. Frewen expects me back to-night,” 
she said. 

Bab had forgotten this ; she, however, now assented 
quietly, and set about devising plans for seeing her 
father, a proceeding which she guessed Mrs. Weir 
would try to thwart. To put the latter off her guard, 
Bab now affected to be sorry for her brusquerie, and 
chatted from time to time on the journey until they 
reached Cirencester Terrace. 

“How is Mr. Frewen now?” she asked Johns, 
when he opened the door. 

“Pretty well, I believe, ma’am. Mr. Edgar has 
been with him,” answered the man. 

Bab went straight upstairs to her room, without any 
further inquiries, and waited in her bedroom, without 
attempting to undress, until the clock struck two. 

Then she crept softly downstairs, peeped through 
the open door of the dining-room, where she saw Mrs. 
Weir asleep in a made-up bed on the sofa, and went 
noiselessly to the study door. 

It was just ajar, so that Mrs. Weir might be within 
hearing of the invalid’s bell. 

Bab entered on tiptoe. If her father were awake, 
she would speak to him at once, tell him her suspi- 
cions. If not, she would wait till he woke up. 
There was a night-light burning in the little inner 
room where his bed was. In the study itself, 
through which she had to pass, there was a tiny jet 
of gas burning. 


OUR WIDOW . 


195 


The inner door was only open by a couple of inches. 
Bab went softly in. 

There, within the room, she stood transfixed with 
astonishment, with unspeakable, nameless horror : the 
bed was disarranged, as if some one had slept in it: 
but her father was not there. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


It was some minutes before Bab could quite per- 
suade herself that she might trust the evidence of her 
own eyes. She put her hand on the bed ; she looked 
under it; she peered into the cupboard in the corner, 
shook the curtains. Then she went back into the 
study, and growing less careful as her alarm in- 
creased, she gradually made more noise, and at last 
stumbled against a chair. 

A few moments later Mrs. Weir came into the 
room. 

“ What is the matter? What are you doing here, 
Bab?” she asked rather sharply. “ You will disturb 
your father.” 

Bab drew herself up, and looked Mrs. Weir full in 
the face. She had turned up the gas in the course 
of her investigations, and by the strong light she 
could note any change in the elder lady’s counte- 
nance. 

“ I cannot disturb my father by the noise I make, ” 
she answered quietly, “ because he is not here. ” 

If Mrs. Weir was not surprised, she was a very 
good actress indeed.. It seemed to the young girl 
that she grew livid to the lips. But then, thought 
Bab, that might be only the result of being found out. 

“Not — here!” she repeated, slowly. 

And in a few rapid steps, Mrs. Weir had crossed 

196 


OUR WIDOW . 


197 


the study, and disappeared into the little adjoining 
room. 

In a few seconds she reappeared, whiter than ever. 

“Call your brother!” she said quickly. 

And she ran out of the study into the hall, while 
Bab followed to carry out her instructions. She 
roused Edgar, and was present when he came out of 
his room and met Mrs. Weir on the staircase. If 
there were any doubts about Mrs. Weir’s surprise at 
Mr. Frewen’s disappearance, there could be none 
about Edgar’s. He staggered, he shook, he clutched 
at the banisters. Then, without waiting to hear a 
word of suggestion or of explanation, he left the two 
ladies together, and rushed downstairs to the room 
his father had occupied. 

When he came out again, he seemed hardly able to 
stand. His thin, sallow face looked drawn and old; 
his teeth chattered as he spoke. 

“It’s true! Great Heavens! What shall we do? 
He’s gone ! He’s gone !” 

Mrs. Weir, who had entirely recovered her self- 
possession, if she could be said ever to have lost it, 
put a restraining hand upon his shoulder. 

“Delirious again, no doubt!” said she in his ear. 

Edgar started, and looked at her. 

“Yes, yes, of course. Delirious!” repeated he, 
as if saying a lesson. 

“You had better go,” said she, “and try to find 
him.” 

And she whispered a few hurried words in his ear. 
He sprang up from the table on which he had seated 
himself, as if hardly able to stand. 


198 


OUR WIDOW. 


“All right, all right !” he answered submissively, 
but in a hoarse voice. “ Just as you think best, of 
course.” 

And the usually self-possessed and self-willed Ed- 
gar obeyed her directions, putting on his hat and 
overcoat at once, and leaving the house quickly and 
without noise. 

Mrs. Weir let him out, and returned to confront 
Bab, who was silent and rather sullen. What was 
this spell that Mrs. Weir cast upon everybody, that 
even Edgar followed each suggestion of hers like a 
lamb? The girl looked up suspiciously, defiantly, as 
Mrs. Weir came in. 

“Mrs. Weir,” said she steadily, looking at the lady 
with shrewd, penetrating eyes, “ I am not a child. If 
you can confide in Edgar, so you can in me. What 
does all this mean? There is some mystery about 
papa’s illness, something we are not to know. But 
don’t you think, after what I’ve found out, that you 
must tell me the rest? If there is a secret, I can 
keep it.” 

Mrs. Weir looked at the girl and smiled. It almost 
seemed as if she hesitated a moment; but if so, it 
was only for a moment. When she spoke it was with 
the kind, motherly manner of a woman who does what 
she thinks best for a child, and whose decisions are 
not to be resisted. 

“My dear child,” she said, “there is no mystery, 
at least none but just this: your father’s illness has 
left him not quite master of his actions, as you see by 
his getting up and disappearing in the middle of the 
night. And we are very anxious that this should not 


OUR WIDOW. 


199 


be known, as it would injure his business seriously, 
perhaps permanently, if his clients got wind of it. 
Can't you understand this?" 

The explanation was a plausible one, at any rate; 
and from any one but the woman she suspected Bab 
would probably have received it as a sufficient one. 
As it was, she could only listen, as she could not 
attempt to disprove it. Mrs. Weir went on: 

“ I want you to go back to your sisters as soon 
as the morning comes. You may rely upon our find- 
ing him, and bringing him back, and keeping better 
guard for the future." 

“But," objected Bab, “if he was not quite right in 
his mind, how was it that he was not better guarded 
before?" 

Mrs. Weir paused for an instant before replying. 
Then she said : 

“He is very touchy, very suspicious, and difficult 
to manage. I suppose we underrated the difficulties 
we should have. He used to watch us to see that we 
did not appear to watch him. At any rate," she 
went on rather impatiently, “ your brother is satisfied 
that I have done my best. Why should not you be?" 

Bab hardly knew herself why it was. Everything 
this woman did in connection with herself, her sis- 
ters, or her father, seemed to be done with the best 
possible motives. But yet it was all vitiated by the 
absolute knowledge Bab had that there was a mystery 
somewhere. 

“Well," said the young girl suddenly, “I won't 
ask you any more questions, Mrs. Weir, you will 
answer me just this one. Who— is — Mr. — Brown?" 


200 


OUR WIDOW . 


She shot out the words deliberately, one by one, 
with the emphasis of one who feels that she is pluck- 
ing at the very heart of a mystery. Mrs. Weir 
looked at her steadily. 

“I have a good mind to tell you,” said she simply. 

“Then why don’t you?” 

“ Because I think it better for you not to know, ” 
answered Mrs. Weir in such a straightforward and 
honest manner that Bab was for the moment silenced. 

“And in the mean time,” went on Mrs. Weir im- 
perturbably, “I will just tell you this, that you had 
better be civil to him, even if it is a little difficult. 
For he is the sort of man who may be dangerous if 
he is offended.” 

Bab listened in perplexity mingled with indignation. 

“And Tryphena,” she began, “is Tryphena to be 
encouraged to flirt with this — this adventurer?” 

Mrs. Weir paused an instant before she answered 
with cutting emphasis : 

“ You and your sisters want very little encourage- 
ment to flirt with anybody. However, if you think 
it is of any use, you can tell her not , decidedly not to 
encourage Mr. Brown.” 

And without another word, Mrs. Weir turned her 
back upon the girl, and shut herself into the dining- 
room. 

Bab stood where she had been left, with a heavy 
heart and burning head. She felt unutterably deso- 
late. Her whole world of ease and frivolous enjoy- 
ment seemed to be turning to dust and ashes, together 
with the old peaceful household routine which had 
existed before Mrs. Weir’s coming. 


OUR WIDOW. 


201 


As for the two cardinal misfortunes which had be- 
fallen her, each was so great that they seemed to 
neutralize each other, and she could only say to her- 
self that Bradley Ingledew had got a wife, and that her 
father had gone away, nobody knew why or where, 
without being able to feel the full force of either blow. 

She stood for some time as if stunned, looking 
at the door of the dining-room and asking herself 
whether it would be of any use for her to make one 
more attack upon the clever adventuress in whose 
hands they all seemed to be puppets, dancing to any 
tune she chose to play. 

And while she still stood hesitating, the front door 
was opened by a latch-key, and Edgar, paler than 
ever, more haggard, more wild of eye and of manner, 
crept softly in. 

There was no light in the hall, except the faint 
morning rays which were now struggling in through 
the windows darkened by the portico. Edgar could 
just see that there was a woman’s figure before him. 
It cut Bab to the heart, with a fresh sense of isola- 
tion, to note the tone of affection in his voice as he 
asked : 

“Mrs. Weir, is that you?” 

And instantly there flashed into the young girl’s 
mind a host of new suspicions. For Bab was quick 
to recognize in her half-brother’s voice the tender 
tones of a lover. 

Before she could speak he had found out his mis- 
take, and was evidently very angry with himself for 
having made it, and with her for being the innocent 
cause of it. 


202 


OUR WIDOW . 


“What are you doing down here? Why aren’t 
you in bed/’ asked he sharply. 

Now there had never been much sympathy between 
Edgar and his half-sisters. To begin with, there was 
too much distance between the child of the first mar- 
riage of Mr. Frewen and the children of the second 
for them to feel that they belonged to one family. 
For Edgar was two and thirty, and was even older 
than his age ; and he knew too much about the undis- 
ciplined ways of the girls, which he was at the same 
time powerless to correct, to be ever on any other 
than snapping terms with them. 

For the first time, as she listened to her brother’s 
“giving himself away,” as she put it to herself, there 
came into Bab’s heart a new feeling that he was after 
all of the same flesh and blood as themselves, since 
he too was capable of an attachment at least as un- 
lucky as any of theirs. 

So instead of retorting in the tone he had himself 
used, she said quite gently : 

“Oh, Edgar, don’t snub me! I’m just as unhappy 
as you can be!” 

There was a moment’s pause; then Edgar struck a 
light, and peered in his half-sister’s face. 

“By Jove, she’s right! Poor little soul!” mut- 
tered he as he blew it out again. 

“ Look here, ” she went on in a whisper, “ you needn’t 
mind my knowing — what I’ve found out ” 

“Why, what’s that?” asked he as sharply as ever. 

But Bab was not to be suppressed. 

“That you’re in love with Mrs. Weir ” 

“Hush. For Heaven’s sake hold your tongue,” 


OUR WIDOW. 


203 


hissed he, seizing her arm. “If she were to know, 
if she were to guess, she’d never speak to me again.” 

Fortunately, Edgar could not see the scornful curl 
in his sister’s lip. She was saying to herself how 
blind men were, and wondering how Edgar, who 
thought himself so clever, could be deceived by an 
artful woman so easily. But she knew better than 
to drop a hint of this. 

“Come up to the drawing-room,” said she; “I 
want to speak to you.” 

But he hesitated. 

“ I must see — I must consult — ” he began. 

Bab cut him short. 

“You will have plenty of time for that,” said she 
rather scornfully in spite of herself. “I am going 
back to Teddington by the first train in the morning. ” 

“Ah, that’s right, that’s right. Better to be out 
of the way of ” 

He stopped short, aware that he had already said 
too much, encouraged by the new sort of confidence 
which had sprang up between them. 

“Ob, don’t be afraid,” said Bab ironically, as she 
led the way upstairs. “ I’m not going to make any 
more attempts to learn this precious secret of yours 
and Mrs. Weir’s. But I should like to know whether 
you have seen anything of a person who calls himself 
Mr. Brown, a friend of Mrs. Weir’s, who has been 
here, had a stormy scene with Mrs. Weir, and who 
is now hanging about The Cottage, and making up 
to Tryphena?” 

Edgar had heard of him, evidently. At the men- 
tion of the “ stormy scene” he frowned. 


204 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Making up to Tryphena, is he?” he repeated with 
evident pleasure at the suggestion. 

“ Well, he is and he isn r t. I don’t think that it is 
more than a flirtation on his side, at all events. His 
looks seem all to be for Mrs. Weir, when she’s about, 
even when his words are addressed to Phena.” 

It was clear that Edgar’s jealousy was roused, 
which was the consummation Bab desired to bring 
about. He turned the tables, however, in his reply, 
which was uttered in a very cross tone: 

“ Well, you girls have only yourselves to thank if 
you get entangled in flirtations with undesirable per- 
sons. Look at the example you and Molly set the 
child. You’ll all come to grief some of these days; 
and there’ll be nobody to blame but yourselves. 
You go flirting about with anybody and everybody, 
and— — ” 

To his utter astonishment, Bab, self-possessed, dig- 
nified Bab, burst into tears. 

“ Don’t, oh, don’t! I can’t bear it now, I can’t, I 
can’t!” 

And for the first time since her misfortune of the 
night before, Bab gave way, and fell sobbing into the 
nearest chair. Edgar was filled with alarm. A hor- 
rible suspicion that his sister had come to some un- 
heard-of harm already came into his mind as he 
watched her. In the gray light of the morning the 
world seemed full of unutterable wretchedness for 
them all. There was real solicitude in his voice as 
he bent over her and asked : 

“My dear girl, what’s the matter? Come, what is 
it?” 


OUR WIDOW. 205 

Bab started up, and stared at him with haggard 
eyes. 

“Oh, the matter is that you* re right, quite right! 
I’ve come to grief already and Molly’s coming. And 
— and (hysterically sobbing) — and— and so you’d 
better punch Mr. Brown’s head, and save Tryphena 
if you can.” 

Never guessing the amount of girlish exaggeration 
there was in the girl’s wild words, Edgar was horror- 
struck. Perceiving this, Bab presently went on in a 
calmer, but still reckless tone : 

“Molly’s going to marry Sir Walter Hay, and you 
can’t prevent her, and nobody can: I expect she will 
have left The Cottage by the time I get back. And 
I — I — I’m never going to flirt again, or care for any- 
body, or anything. Bradley — Bradley Ingledew — is 
married ! That’s why he used to come sometimes, and 
then stay away, of course. I found it out last night!” 

“Ingledew married! By Jove!” exclaimed Ed- 
gar, somewhat relieved by the tone of her last speech. 
“Who is he married to? And when did it come off?” 

“I don’t know when,” said Bab, shaking her head 
mournfully. “And I don’t know what her real name 
is. But she’s an actress, and she calls herself Minnie 
Haarlem.” 

The start, the bound Edgar gave at the name nearly 
took his sister’s breath away. 

“What!” he almost shouted. “Ingledew married 
to Minnie Haar — ” Then he stopped short with a 
hard laugh: “No, it is impossible! He said he was 
married, but it isn’t true.” 

Bab was staring at him in astonishment. 


206 


OUR WIDOW. 


“It was she who told me!” she said plaintively. 

“Well, don’t have anything more to do with him, 
my dear girl. And don’t come in that woman’s way 
again,” said Edgar kindly. “But go and get some 
breakfast — some of them must be about the house 
now — and I’ll find you out a train to Teddington, 
and see you off myself. And mind, you warn those 
two silly sisters of yours to be good girls, and not to 
bring any more misfortunes upon themselves than — 
than they will get without any effort of theirs!” 

His tone was so solemn, so full of prophecy of com- 
ing evil, that Bab shivered, and did not dare ask him 
any more questions. 

Indeed she hardly had a question ready. 

For in her mind, as she tried to eat a hurried break- 
fast, as she drove to the station with Edgar, as she 
sat in the train when she had bidden him good-by, 
there rang always the one question : Could it be that 
Bradley was not married after all? 

For the poor little fictions with which she had 
amused herself were torn to ribbons now : she knew 
that she loved Bradley with all her heart. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Long before Bab arrived at Teddington, Tryphena 
was already preparing to go on the water with Mr. 
Brown. 

He had proposed on the previous evening that he 
should row her up the river as far as Sunbury, and 
she had readily consented. The morning being fine, 
sunny, and warm, therefore, they were to be on the 
water soon after twelve ; and when Bab arrived soon 
after eleven she found her youngest sister already in 
her serge skirt and coat, cream silk shirt and sailor 
hat, waiting on the lawn. 

“Bab!” cried Tryphena, starting up from the chair 
in which she had been lounging, “where have you 
been all night? Molly said you’d gone up to town 
with Mrs. Weir, but I saw you slip out of the house 
before her, and — and — and I was frightened! And 
how white you look! What’s the matter?” 

“ Nothing,” said Bab shortly. “ I’m always white. 
I don’t like red-faced people!” 

“Well, I don’t care for ghosts!” retorted Try- 
phena, in whose cheeks there was always a healthy 
color. “You’ll have a nice time of it with Miss 
Roscoe. She’s been nag, nag, nagging at us on your 
account ever since we got up. And as for Mrs. 
Weir, why, Miss Roscoe’s latest craze is to think 
papa isn’t ill at all, but that Mrs. Weir is keeping 
207 


208 


OUR WIDOW ; 


him shut up against his will, like a Jew in a thir- 
teenth-century castle, for purposes of torture! And 
she says she should never be surprised if he were to 
turn up down here — the poor old governor! Just 
fancy! — having escaped from her clutches by the 
skin of his teeth!” 

Tryphena laughed heartily at her own words ; but 
Bab received them in solemn silence, and with a 
frightened expression in her eyes. This uncanny 
suggestion of Miss Roscoe’s chimed in oddly with 
what she knew about her father’s mysterious disap- 
pearance. 

“ What — what are you dressed so early for? And 
why have you taken the trouble to make yourself look 
decent for once?” she asked, not caring to let Try- 
phena into the secret of her own fears. 

“Oh, I’m going on the water,” answered the 
younger sister, with a sudden change to a smiling 
face. 

“Who are you going with? Mr. Brown?” 

Tryphena nodded. 

“Well, you mustn’t. I’ve just had the most awful 
lecture — lesson, ” said Bab, with a catch in her breath. 
“We’ve all got to be very good, and not go out on the 
river or anywhere without a chaperon for the fu- 
ture,” said Bab quickly. 

Tryphena stared. Then she whistled. 

“And you’re not to whistle. You’re not to do 
anything loud or vulgar, or unlike other people, any 
more. None of us are.” 

At last, after a long pause, during which she had 
scanned her sister’ s features narrowly, and found no 


OUR WIDOW. 


209 


trace of an inclination to smile, Tryphena burst into 
a roar of laughter. 

“Oh, I do like that! It’s beautiful, it really is, 
from you too!” 

Suddenly into Bab’s tired eyes there came two 
great tears. 

“I mean it this time,” she said, with a piteous 
break in her voice. “I’ve reformed myself, and 
you’ve got to reform too.” 

As she paused, to get control of her voice again, 
Tryphena asked sarcastically : 

“And Molly? Are you going to get her to reform 
too?” 

Bab, who was wiping her eyes, nodded in silence. 

“Well, I wish you joy of the attempt, that’s all. 
Just see if you’ll get her to stay at home just be- 
cause you say she must!” 

“At any rate you’ve got to,” retorted Bab severely. 
“Edgar says so.” 

“ Who cares for Edgar?” 

“Well, Mrs. Weir herself told me to tell you not 
to encourage Mr. Brown.” 

“Mrs. Weir! I don’t believe it! She heard him 
asking me to go last night, and she didn’t say any- 
thing. So there!” 

Bab sighed and turned away. She was too un- 
happy to argue very long or very strongly. 

“I’ve warned you. I’ve given you the messages 
that were given me,” she said shortly, as she walked 
away toward the house in search of Molly, whom 
she had not yet seen. 

When Mr. Brown made his appearance, rowing 

14 


210 


OUR WIDOW. 


easily down the stream from Kingston, where he put 
his boat up, Tryphena was standing close to the 
bank, looking very fresh, and smiling, and handsome 
under her Japanese paper sunshade. 

“Do you know,” she called out, before he had 
drawn up to the bank, “that I’ve been told I’m not 
to come out with you?” 

“But you don’t mean to take any notice of that 
command, of course,” said Mr. Brown, looking up 
under his straw hat at the majestic figure of the 
young girl, as she stood smiling from the bank. 

“ Why do you think that?” 

“Because you have impressed upon me that you 
never do what you are told to do.” 

“Oh, but this time it's different,” said Tryphena. 
“The message was sent from Mrs. Weir. At least 
so Bab says.” 

“Well, I shouldn’t believe Bab. Unless, of 
course, you want to,” said Mr. Brown. 

“ Of course I don’t want to, but — — ” 

“Then come along. I’ll make it right with Mrs. 
Weir, trust me.” 

Now it was evident that these last words set Try- 
phena thinking. She looked at Mr. Brown askance 
as he made fast the boat to the post by the bank, 
and held out his hand to help her down. She hesi- 
tated. 

Mr. Brown looked up. Such a pretty picture as 
she made, in her quiet, well-chosen dress, against 
the soft background of green grass and gently stir- 
ring trees, he thought he had never seen. He drew 
back the hand he had been holding out to her, sat 


OUR WIDOW . 


211 


clown again in the boat, and clasped his knees with 
his hands. 

A look of disappointment flashed across the girl’s 
candid face. 

“ Aren’t you going to take me?” she asked quickly. 

“Yes, if you want to come. I can’t take you 
against your will, you know. And I don’t even want 
you against your inclination.” 

After an instant’s pause, Tryphena came a step 
nearer. 

“I don’t believe Mrs. Weir ever said it,” she said 
defiantly. 

Mr. Brown waited until she had accepted his assist- 
ance, and seated herself in the boat, and then he said 
quietly : 

“And if she did say it, what then?” 

Tryphena looked him frankly in the face. 

“If Mrs. Weir told me not to go out with you, 
not to go out with any one, I shouldn’t go,” said she 
simply. 

“ Why?” 

“ Because — because I’m fond of her.” 

Mr. Brown looked at her as she made this pretty, 
childish answer j and an expression something like 
tenderness came into his rather hard face. 

“That’s a very illogical answer, child,” said he at 
last. “ But — for a child, a very good one, in fact the 
best.” 

“Why do you call me a child?” said Tryphena, 
surprised, and rather inclined to be offended. 

“Why, because your childishness, no, childlike- 
ness, was suddenly borne in upon me very strongly,” 


212 


OUR WIDOW. 


he answered gently, as he began to pull the boat, 
with a long, steady stroke, up the river, keeping close 
under the bank, with its rushes and tall green 
grasses. 

“ I don’t understand how.” 

“ Why try to understand? Be a child, understand- 
ing nothing, as long as you can ; as long as you have 
Mrs. Weir to go to for advice.” 

A shadow came in an instant over the young girl’s 
open face. She was ashamed to find that she felt 
something like a pang of jealousy at his praise of 
Mrs. Weir. 

“You have known her a long time?” she asked 
curiously, quite unconscious how much her innocent 
face betrayed. 

“It is a very long time since I met her first,” 
replied Mr. Brown with caution. 

“ You like her very much?” 

“ I admire her enormously. In some respects she 
is a grand woman. In others, well, not so grand.” 

“ Do you like her better than any woman you have 
ever met?” asked Tryphena inquisitively. “ Because 
if you do, you know, why you’re quite right.” 

Mr. Brown looked as if he had hard work in re- 
straining a smile. But he answered with perfect 
gravity : 

“I can’t answer a question like that off-hand. It 
requires reflection. I should have to find out, first, 
whether, if I told you all the secrets of my heart, you 
would be equally candid about yours.” 

“Oh, I haven’t got any secrets of the heart. The 
other girls say I haven’t any heart.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


213 


“ Perhaps it hasn’t had time to grow?” suggested 
Mr. Brown. 

Tryphena looked at him with shrewd eyes. Mr. 
Brown thought her fresh young face, in the soft glow 
from the Japanese sunshade, rather intoxicating. 

“That means again that I’m a child,” said she 
with deliberation. “ But ” 

“ Please to pull a little with your left hand, or we 
shall find ourselves embedded in the rushes.” 

“All right. But don’t call me a child again, or 
else I shall get excited, and steer straight into some- 
thing.” 

“ But there was really nothing to get excited about 
that time. We were talking about the heart.” 

“ Oh, yes, I know. And you said I was too young 
to have one. But that’s absurd. Look at Molly and 
Bab. They’ve been in love fifteen or twenty times 
at least; and neither of them’s twenty.” 

“ You’re certainly a long way behind then, if, as 
you say, you’ve never been in love at all.” 

“I didn’t say that — at least, did I?” said Try- 
phena, blushing, and threatening again, in her confu- 
sion, to go back into the rushes. 

“ You certainly implied it, if you didn’t say it in 
so many words.” 

“ Ah, well, I don’ t mean to fall in love at all, ever. 
That’s my secret of the heart. I’ve seen too much 
of it — with Bab and Molly. I know they’ll both 
end by marrying badly and being miserable all their 
lives.” 

“ So you mean to retrieve the family honor by 
marrying well, and being happy ever afterward?” 


214 


OUR WIDOW . 


Tryphena looked horror-struck. The boat went 
straight into the bank this time and stuck there. 

“Now you’ve done it!” murmured Mr. Brown 
softly, as he unshipped one oar and lay on the other 
to listen to her. 

“ I marry well?” cried Tryphena with ineffable 
disgust, “ marry some horrid rich man for the sake of 
his money, and be awfully proper for the rest of my 
life? No, not exactly!” 

“ Are all rich men horrid then?” 

“ Why yes, you know they are. I suppose you’ve 
heard,” she went on with flashing eyes, “ that they 
want me to marry Mr. Smee, because he’s rich; and 
they’ve put you up to advising it too.” 

“ Indeed they haven’t put me up to anything of the 
sort. Though indeed Mr. Smee seems a rather nice 
fellow. I met him once. Bather good-looking, too, 
I thought. ” 

“I think he’s atrocious. And you’ll please not to 
talk about him any more.” 

“ Well, I won’t, of course, if you don’t wish it,” 
agreed Mr. Brown meekly, as he pushed the boat 
once more into deep water and went on rowing. 
“ But at the same time, without suggesting that a 
girl should marry for money, there is no doubt that it 
is better if she can manage to fix her affections on a 
gentleman who possesses the article.” 

" Oh, of course, ” assented Tryphena indifferently. 

“ For a marriage without any money at all, or any 
money to speak of, is wretched, and ought to be im- 
possible.” 

“ Very likely,” assented Tryphena, who was trying 


OUR WIDOW. 


215 


to steer carefully, and whose face was puckered into 
a delightful expression of careworn gravity. 

“ Now if, for instance, a penniless adventurer like 
myself, with a bad character into the bargain, were 
to fall in love with a girl, and induce her to marry 
him, what could be more wretched for both of us?” 

Tryphena was silent, apparently she did not know 
what could be more wretched. Then, as he seemed 
to wait for an answer of some sort, she nodded 
gravely. He seemed just a little surprised at this. 

“I suppose you knew I was poor?” he suggested 
after a pause. 

“I guessed it,” answered Tryphena sympatheti- 
cally. 

“ How?” 

Tryphena blushed a little. She did not like to 
tell him the sort of remarks her elder sisters had 
exchanged about his clGthes. 

“Oh— oh!” she began vaguely, “anybody that’s 
nice is always poor.” 

Mr. Brown smiled. 

“ Thank you, ” he said. “ But may I ask why you 
seem also to take it for granted that my character 
was not of the best?” 

Tryphena blushed more deeply still. She seemed, 
Mr. Brown thought, to grow handsomer every mo- 
ment. The blazing heat of the noonday sun, tem- 
pered by the Japanese sunshade, became her opulent 
style of beauty. 

“Did I seem to take it for granted?” she said 
rather prettily, remembering, as she did, the family 
verdict that he must be “ a foreign adventurer.” “It 


216 


OUR WIDOW. 


was only that — that of course I didn’t know, you 
know; and when you said your character was bad, I 
supposed you ought to know, you know.” 

“ And now that I’ve told you, aren’t you afraid of 
me?” 

Tryphena glanced up at him with a shy smile, and 
shook her head. 

“No,” she said sweetly. “If you were a bad char- 
acter in a bad way, Mrs. Weir wouldn’t have let you 
come and talk to us.” 

Mr. Brown’s smile grew very broad at this. 

“You are consistent,” said he. “Your standard is 
always — Mrs. Weir.” 

“Can’t help that,” rejoined Tryphena, with a 
shrug of the shoulders, as the boat passed into the 
cool shade of the trees as they drew near to Kingston 
bridge. 

Then the talk dropped for a little while, giving 
place to a silence in which the ideas started by the 
conversation began to work. And as they glided on, 
sometimes in the sunshine, sometimes in the shade, 
with a word exchanged here, and a smile there, they 
gradually became more and more clearly conscious 
that this companionship was a perfect thing. And 
as the day waned again, and they came back in the 
cool of the late afternoon, in the shade of a gathering 
thunder cloud, their hearts, and especially that of the 
man, grew heavy with the sense that the time for part- 
ing was approaching and with the knowledge that the 
evening would seem long. 

When he had drawn the boat up to the lawn, and 
Tryphena had risen to her feet to get out, Mr. Brown 


OUR WIDOW. 


217 


held her hand for a moment in his, with an expression 
on his face which startled the girl. 

“And now good-by,” said he abruptly, in a low 
voice. 

“But — aren’t you coming in? To see Bab and 
Molly? Just for a minute?” asked Tryphena, al- 
most in dismay. 

“No,” said he shortly. “I won’t go in. I have 
to go away — to-night. I don’t suppose I shall ever 
see you again.” 

Tryphena could hardly repress a cry of dismay and 
pain. 

“And if,” he went on, without looking into her 
face, though he still held her hand, “if, when you 
hear more about me, as you will do, you are dis- 
gusted at the thought that you ever let me touch your 
hand, remember that every man has two natures, and 
that the man who had the privilege of spending this 
happy day with you was not the man whom you may 
some day have to curse. Good-by.” 

Frightened, trembling, she had got out of the boat, 
and was watching him, wide-eyed, from the bank. 

But he raised his hat without looking up, and began 
to pull the oars vigorously without another glance at 
her. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


Tryphena found Miss Roscoe, and Molly, and Bab, 
and the makeweight, and one or two more of “ Ed- 
gar’s friends,” on the lawn. 

Both the girls were languid and rather disagreea- 
ble, as they had wanted to have a long chat about the 
events of the preceding evening; and a long succes- 
sion of visitors, beginning in the morning just as 
Tryphena went off, had prevented their exchanging a 
dozen words on the subjects nearest their hearts. 

All that Molly had gathered from Bab, so far, was 
that she had interviewed Sam, and that Bradley Ingle- 
dew had a wife. 

Never had they found it so difficult to entertain 
their friends ; never had those friends been so long- 
suffering and so meek. 

Of course the reason of this extreme devotion lay 
in the curiosity of the makeweight and his compan- 
ions about the hurried visit of Bab’s to Bradley’s 
houseboat on the preceding evening. The little scene 
between her and Minnie Haarlem in which that visit 
had culminated had taken place so quickly, the ladies 
had been so subdued, that very little was known 
about the encounter. But still there were rumors, 
and these rumors were interesting ; so the makeweight 
and the rest of them wanted to know in what con- 
dition of mind they should find Miss Bab. 

218 


OUR WIDOW. 


219 


“ Hallo, Tryphena, didn’t you ask Mr. Brown to 
come up and have some claret-cup?” asked Molly, 
when her younger sister came slowly, with a very long 
face, up the lawn toward the group. 

“Of course I did. But he wouldn’t come,” said 
Tryphena, nodding to Lindo, and giving a hand to 
one of the others. “He’s got to meet a friend at 
Kingston.” 

“We know that friend,” said the makeweight. 
“He didn’t want to have only a share of your con- 
versation, Miss Tryphena, when he’s had it all to 
himself all day.” 

“ Shut up, ” said Tryphena with ferocity. 

And thus gracefully adjured, Lindo obeyed. 

Bab sighed conspicuously. The conversation, which 
had been intermittent throughout the afternoon, lan- 
guished altogether, and the visitors soon made excuses 
to retire, without having discovered anything mate- 
rial. Bab was too clever even to have mentioned 
Bradley’s name. 

When they had all gone, Bab sprang up from her 
chair suddenly. 

“I know what’s the matter! I know why it’s been 
so dull!” she cried energetically. “It’s because of 
Sam. We do miss old Sam. He was our real chap- 
eron, Sam. Without him we’re nothing but a lot of 
disorderly girls. He gave a tone of propriety, beara- 
ble propriety to us all and to everything. Oh, dear 
old Sam! Poor old Sam.” 

Molly listened with a white face. Then, quite 
suddenly, she jumped up from her seat and ran in- 
doors. 


220 


OUR WIDOW. 


And she locked herself in her own room, and re- 
fused either to come out or to let any one come in, all 
that evening. 

Unable to get that long-desired talk with Molly, 
therefore, Bab was reduced to holding communion 
with Tryphena. When the household retired for the 
night, Bab came into her younger sister’s bedroom. 
Down at The Cottage each girl had a separate tiny 
bedroom. 

Neither girl was in good enough spirits to talk, 
however; they brushed their hair in almost mute 
companionship, looking out at the waving trees, and 
at the little bit of the lawn which could be seen from 
Tryphena’ s window. 

Presently Bab got up from her chair with a curious 
expression of face, and crept softly to the open win- 
dow. Attracted by her manner, Tryphena followed her. 
Bab turned for a moment, and put her finger to her lips. 

“There’s somebody among the trees. A man!” 
whispered Tryphena in alarm. “ Who is it, Bab?” 

Bab’s hand shook as she laid it on her sister’s arm. 

“ It’s — it’s papa!” she whispered back, stopping 
Tryphena’ s attempt at a cry by placing her hand 
upon her mouth. “ Be quiet. I must go downstairs 
and let him in. He wants to come in !” 

But before she could carry out her intention, before 
she could so much as move from the window, there was 
a fierce cry, scarcely so much like the cry of a man as 
that of a wild beast, and the next moment the fright- 
ened girls saw not one man, but two under the trees. 

They were fighting, struggling, tearing at one an- 
other. 


OUR WIDOW . 


221 


“What is it? What is it? Who is the other 
man?” cried Bab, bewildered, horror-struck. 

For in Try phena’ s face there was a look of appalled 
recognition. 

“Sh— sh!” whispered she in a strangled voice. 

And then words came to their ears, words choked 
as they were uttered, fierce, terrible, forced up, one 
by one, with panting breath, out of a parched throat 
to a faltering tongue. 

“You — have ruined me — broken me. Don’t — 
don’t kill me too!” 

“Who said that?” cried Bab hoarsely. 

“Papa!” cried Tryphena, scarcely able to utter the 
word. 

There was another struggle, a cry, and one of the 
men fell, flung down like & heap of old clothes by the 
other. 

Then there was silence. 

Shaking with horror, staggering with fear, the two 
girls went downstairs. But as they went Bab whis- 
pered : 

“Who was the other man? Was it Mr. Brown?” 

For answer Tryphena, shivering, bent her head in 
assent. 

“And which of them is lying there?” 

“I don’t know,” sobbed Tryphena. 

Clinging to each other, the girls unfastened the 
door, and went out into the garden. 

There in the shadow of the trees, lying across the 
broad path by the yew hedge, was the prostrate, mo- 
tionless body of a man. 

It was their father. 


CHAPTER XXY. 


It was a moonlit night, but under the trees, 
where Mr. Erewen lay, there was hardly enough light 
to see the motionless human form. 

Bab and Tryphena went down on their knees on 
the gravel, and Tryphena, with her strong young 
arms, raised her father, and supported his head 
against her shoulder. 

“ He isn’t dead, Bab. His heart’s beating! Call 
somebody; send for a doctor. Quick!” 

But Bab was behaving very strangely, almost as if 
she had believed herself to be moving in a dream. 
Instead of following her sister’s very natural sugges- 
tion, she was still sitting on the ground, staring into 
her father’s face, with an expression which Tryphena 
afterward described as “ moonstruck. ” 

“No, he isn’t dead,” Bab said at last, in as lei- 
surely a manner as if she had been assisting at the 
most ordinary occurrence in the world. “ And as for 
sending for a doctor, why, we won’t do that unless 
we find he really wants one. People would think 
this such a queer thing, don’t you see!” 

Tryphena, who had reasons of her own for not de- 
siring a very searching examination made into the 
cause of her father’s accident, acquiesced by silence. 

“I’ll fetch some water,” said Bab. 

And she got up and went into the house, coming 

m 


OUR WIDOW. 


223 


into violent contact, as she did so, with the person of 
Miss Eoscoe, who had by this time been roused from 
sleep by the disturbance. She looked very untidy, 
Bab thought in disgust. Bab would never have been 
caught, even by an earthquake or an alarm of fire, 
otherwise than in a picturesque and presentable 
“ get-up.” 

“ What is it? What’s the matter? What’s all the 
noise about?” asked Miss Eoscoe querulously. “ And 
what do you girls mean by running in and out of the 
house, banging doors and waking everybody up, and 
shouting and screaming, in the middle of the night?” 

And she wound a wisp of hair round her right ear, 
and fastened another button of her red flannel dress- 
ing-gown, “of course,” as Bab told Molly afterward, 
“into the wrong buttonhole!” 

“ Papa has come, ” answered Bab coolly. 

And leaving the astonished Miss Eoscoe to digest 
and to profit by this piece of information as best she 
might, Bab passed her, and went in search of water 
and brandy. 

When she got back, she found Mr. Frewen already 
on his feet again, leaning on the arm of Tryphena, 
and apparently rather bored by the fulsome attentions 
of Miss Eoscoe on the other side. He was snappish, 
too, and remarked that he wasn’t a cripple, and didn’t 
want two arms to help him along. 

On the whole, though he was rather shaky, and not 
in full command of his voice, he seemed to be little 
the worse for his encounter with the man who had 
disappeared. 

“How did it happen? What made you fall down, 


224 


OUR WIDOW . 


dear Mr. Frewen?” asked Miss Eoscoe, in a tone 
which hardly stopped short of tenderness. “How 
was it you came so late? Were you trying to make 
us hear and did you then trip over something?” 

“Bless the woman, no,” answered the ungrateful 
old gentleman testily. “I — I was set upon by a 
scoundrel, who half-choked me ! Let me get indoors, 
for goodness’ sake. I don’t want to stand out here 
all night, catching my death of cold!” 

And he made haste to get to the house, an attempt 
in which he had been impeded by the well-meaning 
Miss Eoscoe, casting, as he did so, more than one 
anxious and startled glance around him. 

“A scoundrel! Set upon by a scoundrel!” echoed 
Miss Eoscoe in dismay. “ Here ! In your very gar- 
den!” 

There is no knowing to what lengths of hysterical 
horror Miss Eoscoe would have gone if Bab had not 
hastened to convey to her, by a series of elaborate 
winks and nods and touches of the head, an implied 
opinion that Mr. Frewen might have been suffering 
from a delusion consequent upon his illness. 

After this, the excitable lady suffered Mr. Frewen 
to make his way into the house without further hin- 
drance. 

The girls led their father into the dining-room ; but 
he glanced nervously toward the window and ex- 
pressed a wish to sleep upstairs. And on the way up 
he condescended to give Bab, who accompanied him, 
some sort of explanation, at the same time exacting, 
in return, accurate information as to what she had 
seen of the encounter. 


OUR WIDOW. 


225 


“ I was feeling a little better to-day,” he said. 
“ And the idea came into my head that I should get 
all right more quickly if I could get down here among 
you girls again. So I came.” 

Bab made no remark as to the singular hour he had 
chosen for his arrival. Hor did she tell him that he 
seemed stronger than she had expected to find him, 
after so long an illness. In Bab’s shrewd little mind 
some strange ideas were working; until they were 
ripe, she was quiet, very quiet. He then asked her 
a direct question : 

“Did you girls see the attack made upon me?” 

“Hot very clearly, papa. We saw a struggle, 
scuffle, you and another man swaying about together 
on the path. And then, suddenly, we saw you lying 
on the ground.” 

“And the rascal who attacked me — would you 
know him again? Could you swear to him if he 
were caught?” 

“/ couldn’t certainly.” 

“And could Tryphena, do you think?” 

Bab hesitated. She had the strongest reason for 
believing that her younger sister could do so ; but she 
knew also that Tryphena would be a most unwilling 
witness. Mr. Frewen, however, went on after a 
pause, without waiting for her answer. 

“ At any rate, I know the man. A rascal, a black- 
mailer, a liar of the first water ! He has nearly been 
the death of me this time. But I’ll be even with 
him; I’ll make him smart for this yet!” 

And, in a state of great agitation, Mr. Frewen be- 
gan to pace up and down the bedroom into which he 
15 


226 


OUR WIDOW . 


had been shown, staggering a little indeed, as might 
have been expected, but evincing an amount of ani- 
mosity against his assailant which gave him energy to 
conquer his bodily weakness. 

As he turned in his walk, he came face to face 
with his youngest daughter, who was standing at the 
door of the room, watching him with puzzled eyes. 
He stopped short. 

“Ah! Tryphena, now did you see the man attack 
me? Would you know him again?” said Mr. Frewen 
quickly. 

Tryphena, who had lost her beautiful color, and 
whose bonny face wore an air of undisguised misery, 
did not answer. She stared at her father as he asked 
the question, then glanced quickly at Bab, and, with- 
out a word, slipped away into the darkness of the 
corridor outside. 

At this moment the officious Miss Boscoe was heard 
imploring Tryphena to return to her father, and not 
neglect him when he was ill. Mr. Frewen, who 
seemed to be in a highly irritable frame of mind, 
shut the door and turned to Bab. 

“Go,” said he imperiously. “You can bring me 
up the brandy, in case I want it in the night. And 
you can put a handbell on the table if you like. But 
tell that woman not to come near me, because I can’t 
stand being fussed over. I’m perfectly well; never 
was better in my life. And I don’t want any doctors, 
nor nurses, nor anything. Can’t stand ’em. Won’t 
have ’em. Make her understand. And now you 
may kiss me, and go to bed. And if I want anything 
I can call out.” 


OUR WIDOW . 


227 


Bab gave his dry cheek a dutiful peck, as she was 
told, and withdrew at once. Just as she was leaving 
the room he said : 

“ See that the house is properly secured before you 
go to bed. That ruffian wouldn’t stick at anything, 
I believe. See that the windows are properly fast- 
ened, and the doors locked.” 

“All right, papa,” said Bab dutifully, noting once 
more her father’s nervous and anxious glances about 
him as she went out. 

In the corridor she met Molly, whose bedroom was 
on the river-side of the house. She had heard noth- 
ing of the disturbance, but had been roused from 
sleep by Tryphena, who had burst in upon her with 
a rambling account of Mr. Frewen’s arrival and of 
Miss Koscoe’s hysterics. 

“Bab!” said she in a whisper. 

Bab put her finger rather mysteriously on her lip, 
and followed her elder sister to the latter’s little 
room. 

“Tell me all about it, Bab,” said Molly. “I 
couldn’t make head or tail of what Tryphena told 
me. She said papa had had a struggle with a man, 
outside, in the garden! Is it true?” 

Bab nodded. 

“ She didn’t tell you who the man was, I suppose?” 

“No,” said Molly. “Who was it?” 

“Her friend, Mr. Brown. And papa says he is 
a scoundrel, and a blackmailer, and everything that’s 
dreadful. There!” 

Molly whistled. 

“ I thought our love affairs would take some beat- 


228 


OUR WIDOW . 


in g,” remarked she at last. “But the little ’un’s 
been one too many for us!” 

Bab sighed. 

“Don’t talk slang to-night, Molly,” she said plain- 
tively. “It’s too awful for that. Bor you’ve got a 
lot more to hear. You’ve got to hear about me!” 

Molly nodded, and curled herself luxuriously on 
her bed. There is something attractive and pleasure- 
able about a love-story, even when it is checkered 
with woe. 

“ Now I’m ready, dear, ” said she soothingly. “ Tell 
me all about it.” 

“Well, I’ll begin at the beginning,” replied Bab 
with a long sigh. “ And the beginning is about you.” 

“Me?” 

“ Yes. It all began with our seeing Sam go past 
with that other girl. I was disgusted. I shouldn’t 
have thought it of Sam!” 

But Molly interrupted her here by a very forced 
laugh. 

“Oh, you needn’t have troubled your head about 
that. I didn’t. Why shouldn’t he take another 
girl out, if he likes to?” 

Bab pursed her lips. 

“It’s all very well to talk like that, Molly, but I 
know you feel it as much as I do. He had no busi- 
ness to go flaunting this other girl in our faces. If 
she had been one of the girls who don’t count, one of 
the girls who always smile and look pleased at every- 
thing, it wouldn’t have mattered. But she had nice 
boots, and her hair was properly done, and I could 
tell in a moment, from just that glance I had at her, 


OUR WIDOW. 


229 


that she was one of those girls who say just the right 
thing to a man, and console him for his troubles with 
another girl by letting him talk about them, till the 
old love gets merged in the new! Oh, I know!” 

It might almost have been thought that Bab had 
tried her hand at this sort of consolation herself, so 
well did she describe it. But Molly affected not to 
care. 

“Well, why not?” said she, moving restlessly, 
and rearranging the long hanging cuffs of her white 
cambric dressing-gown. “Pm sure I hope with all 
my heart that she’s a really nice girl, and that — that 
— Bab, don’t talk about Sam any more!” 

She was on the point of breaking down. Bab, who 
had been rendered by her own misfortune in love the 
more anxious that her sisters should be less unlucky, 
placed herself beside Molly, and put one hand round 
her shoulder. 

“Molly,” she said in a voice full of feeling, “don’t 
go and make a horrid, awful mistake. Don’t go and 
marry the wrong man, and then be miserable all your 
life after because you didn’t have the sense to take the 
right one! Don’t, don’t — oh, Molly, do — o — on’t!” 

And Bab ended abruptly with a snivel. But Molly 
was cross, and fierce, and scornful, and determined, 
all at the same time. She would not submit to her 
sister’ s caress, but sat upright and blinked ferociously 
to keep the tears back. 

“I shouldn’t have thought, Bab,” she said, unable 
to speak at all except at a white heat, “that you 
would have wished me to be so mean-spirited as to 
throw over the man who does care about me, who 


230 


OUR WIDOW . 


says Fm all the world to him, just for this fellow 
who doesn’t care a pin!” 

“Oh, but I believe he does all the time!” interpo- 
lated Bab. 

“Rubbish!” said Molly hotly. “Let him keep his 
girl with the nice boots! I wouldn’t marry him if 
there were no other man in the world. You don’t 
seem to understand, Bab, that I love Walter, love 
him with all my heart; and that he loves me with all 
his heart, and that if I were to throw him over, it 
would kill him! He says so.” 

Bab rashly uttered an exclamation expressive of 
strong incredulity. 

“He says so!” said she. 

Molly sprang off the bed, and stood in an attitude 
worthy of Lady Macbeth. 

“And why should what he says not count, as well 
as what the other says?” she asked vaguely but with 
passion. “ Go on with your own story, Bab, if you 
like; but I won’t hear another word about mine. 
I’ve given my word to Walter, and I shall keep it, 
whatever anybody says!” 

“ Oh, all right,” said Bab dismally. “ After all it’s 
more consistent, since Tryphena and I have made fools 
of ourselves, that you should do the same.” 

“ Go on, go on with your story, if you have any to 
tell, ” said Molly, stamping her foot impatiently. 

Bab sighed again, and obeyed. 

“Well, I told Sam ” 

“ Sam, Sam — nothing but Sam !” 

“Well, I must mention Sam when he comes in!” 
protested Bab. “ I told him about this Mr. Brown, 


OUR WIDOW. 


231 


and he said it was odd. And I asked him to take me 
up to town to tell papa about it, but he said he 
couldn’t, because of this girl.” 

“Oh, never mind the girl!” said Molly angrily. 

“That’s the last time she comes in,” replied Bab 
gravely. “Or Sam either.” 

Molly twisted her shoulders. 

“ So I ran back here, and put on a nice froek^— ■ ” 

“Of course you wouldn’t forget that!” interpolated 
Molly. 

“No fear!” retorted Bab coolly. “And I went off 
to Staines, to see if Bradley could help me to identify 
this Mr. Brown with Max Lowenstein.” 

Molly started. 

“Lowenstein! Oh, I’d forgotten all about him! I 
suppose he is Mr. Brown.” 

“It looks like it,” assented Bab. “Well, I got a 
boatman to row me over to the houseboat, and I saw 
at once that the woman I told you about, the one I 
saw Bradley with at the Haymarket, was there. And 
I felt quite sick, and wished I — I hadn’t come. But 
there was no help for it then. I didn’t show what I 
felt, at least I hope I didn’t. I pretended not to no- 
tice anybody in particular, and I said I had a message, 
and that I wouldn’t detain him. But oh, Molly, it 
was so hard just to take his hand, and get on the 
houseboat, and speak and look as if nothing had hap- 
pened!” 

“ But nothing had happened — yet!” observed Molly 
with interest. 

“ Yes, it had, Molly. It was all over, for me. I 
didn’t know, of course, what it was exactly that I 


232 


OUR WIDOW. 


was to hear. But I had a feeling that — that it was 
all over.” 

And Bab’s voice, which had sunk to a pathetic 
whisper, faded quite away. It was Molly’s turn to 
be sympathetic now. 

“Poor — poor Bab!” she said softly. 

Bab sobbed in silence. 

“And was it he who told you?” 

“No. Worse. She did! Oh, Molly, wasn’t it 
awful ! She met me, when I had spoken to Bradley, 
$iite quietly, you know; I pretended not to notice 
anything, as I told you. But she met me, and said 
her stage name was Minnie Haarlem, but that her real 
name was — was — Ing — Ing — gledew! Oh, Molly!” 

“And are you sure it’s true?” 

“Pretty sure. Bradley disappeared when she 
came up to me.” 

Molly looked thoughtful. 

“But after all, you know, Bab, you always said 
you didn’t want to marry him, that you wouldn’t go 
and get married and be tied down for a long time yet. 
So what difference does it make?” 

There was a long pause. Then Bab said gravely : 

“That’s just what I can’t make out myself, Molly. 
I didn’t want to marry Bradley, and I always thought 
it was only the most harmless sort of flirtation ; that 
it was pleasant to see him, and to dance with him, 
and to talk to him, and that was all. But, Molly, I 
was wrong. I can see it now. I — I — I feel I hate 
that woman for being his wife ! I shall get over it, 
of course, but that’s how I feel now. As if I hated 
her, and Bradley too!” 


OUR WIDOW. 


233 


“Well, that’s right. You ought to hate him, for 
he’s behaved very badly.” 

But Bab would not hear of this. 

“No, it was as much my fault as his,” she said 
quickly. “When a girl says she is only going to 
amuse herself, a man takes her at her word. Molly, 
we’ve been badly brought up. That’s why all this 
has happened. Because we don’t behave just like 
other girls, they think there’s a good deal more harm 
in us than there is, and they treat us worse than we 
deserve. Mrs. Weir’s right. We ought to have 
learned to say ‘papa, potatoes, poetry, prunes, 
prism,’ and to tell lies, and darn stockings, like 
other girls. Then people would have respected us, 
and would have asked us to marry them in the proper 
way, and we should have grown fat and dowdy and 
fond of eating in the orthodox way, and have had a 
nap on Sunday afternoons! It isn’t too late now, 
Molly, perhaps! Will you try if I do?” 

Molly hardly knew whether Bab was half in ear- 
nest, or wholly in earnest, or whether she was speaking 
altogether in fun. But she saw that it was costing 
Bab a great effort to speak in her usual flippant way, 
and she was heartily sorry for her. 

“Don’t, Bab, don’t talk like that,” she said gently. 
“Look here, dear. You — you shall have my paste 
buttons, really, to keep, for the peach-colored blouse.” 

These paste buttons had been Mrs. Frewen’s, and 
they had been given to Molly as the eldest daughter’s 
right, and had been coveted by Bab for years. This 
gift, therefore, meant something, and Molly made the 
offer with a solemn air. 


234 


OUR WIDOW. 


But Bab shook her head. 

“Thanks, dear, I’m past being consoled even by 
the buttons,” she said in a rather husky and quaver- 
ing voice. And she made a sudden plunge in the 
direction of the door. At the threshold she half- 
turned, so that Molly could hear her, without seeing 
much of her face. “I always thought,” said she, 
“and everybody else thought, that I liked frocks 
better than anything else in the world, except 
peaches and new bread-and-butter. And now it’s 
all — all crumpled away. I couldn’t smile, really 
smile because I wanted to smile, this moment, if I 
were to be put into a hansom directed to Bond Street, 
with five ten-pound notes in my pocket!” 

And Bab went quietly back to her own room, while 
Molly sat wondering whether to laugh or to cry at her 
sister’s remarkable confession. 


CHAPTEB XXVI. 


It was quite early on the following morning, before 
breakfast in fact, when Tryphena slipped out of the 
house through one of the back windows, and made 
her way, in rather a stealthy and furtive fashion, 
choosing the shelter of such trees and bushes as grew 
between the house and the river, down to the water’s 
edge. 

She had had a bad night, for her, having been kept 
awake at least two hours, tormented by ugly suspi- 
cions and surmises about Mr. Brown. Try as she 
would to persuade herself that it had not been he 
whom she had seen struggling with her father, the 
evidence of her own eyes would not be rejected; and, 
puzzled and distressed, the young girl made her pillow 
wet with sorrowful tears. 

She hardly knew whether to be relieved or misera- 
ble when, at about half-past seven in the morning, 
when she was dressing, she caught sight of Mr. 
Brown in his skiff, paddling about close under the 
opposite bank of the river. 

One thing was certain : she must see him, speak to 
him, and ask him what that encounter meant. 

When she reached the bank, however, a sudden 
shyness seized her. Mr. Brown had caught sight of 
her, and had instantly changed the course of his boat 
and was bringing it straight across the river to the 
235 


236 


OUR WIDOW. 


spot where she stood. And Tryphena felt, in an 
instant, that this ought to be enough for her. How 
could a ruffian who had set upon and beaten a respec- 
table elderly gentleman, in the small hours of the 
morning, turn up in the sunlight, smiling and un- 
ashamed, with morning greetings for the respectable 
gentleman’s daughter? 

The thing was clearly impossible, and the supposi- 
tion might be dismissed. And Tryphena heaved a 
deep sigh as she did dismiss it, and held out her hand 
frankly to Mr. Brown. 

A little feeling of perplexity from her on the one 
hand, of shame at having harbored such suspicions 
on the other, made her greeting very subdued, and 
prettier than ever. 

“I thought I was never to see you again,” said she 
in a rather low voice. 

Mr. Brown, who had hardly ever heard her speak 
in a low voice before, was charmed. 

“ I hope you’ re not sorry that I have changed my 
mind?” 

Tryphena suddenly blushed. For as he looked up, 
the remembrance of the face she had seen in the strug- 
gle with her father in the night became suddenly 
vivid. She did not answer at once. Then there came 
into her mind what seemed to her a brilliant inspira- 
tion. 

“ Won’t you come in and have breakfast with us?” 
she asked. “My father has come down; he came 
late last night. He’s been ill, very ill, and he wants 
a lot of cheering up. So I’m sure he’ll be glad to see 
you.” 


OUR WIDOW ; 


237 


But over the dark face of Mr. Brown there had 
come suddenly a change. How great the change was 
Tryphena could not see, as she was standing on the 
bank above him, and he bent his head suddenly, so 
that his straw hat hid the greater part of his face. 
But there was a tone of sullen malignity in his voice 
as he answered her : 

“ Thanks. I am afraid I can’t allow myself that 
pleasure. I am going away ” 

“But you said that last night!” cried Tryphena 
interrupting him quickly. 

“It is true none the less,” he answered shortly. 
“ I have an appointment in town to-day, an important 
appointment. And after that I shall be leaving Eng- 
land, at least for a time.” 

Tryphena said nothing. She was conscious that a 
strange change had come over Mr. Brown since the 
day before, a change she could not exactly define, but 
which showed itself chiefly in abrupt alternations be- 
tween gentleness and a sort of sullen resentment. He 
looked up at last, and their eyes met. Each looked 
away again at once, and neither spoke for a time. 
At last he said, with a rather forced laugh : 

“ You are thinking I need not have troubled you 
this morning, just to repeat what I said last night?” 

“ I was not thinking that, ” answered she, simply. 
“I was thinking about something you said yesterday, 
about your having two natures.” 

“ I said every man had two natures, ” corrected Mr. 
Brown. 

“Yes. And I was wondering, just now, whether 
this nature, the one you are showing now, was the 


238 


OUR WIDOW. 


one I might ‘some day have to curse. ’ That’s what 
you said, you know!” 

Mr. Brown burst out into a roar of unconventionally 
loud laughter. 

“ Why should you have to curse me for the nature 
you see this morning?” lie asked, his good-liumor 
quite restored by her ingenuousness. 

“Why, you are so very cross. You have been 
speaking as if it was a great effort even to look at me 
without frowning. And yet it was your own choice 
to speak to me at all, wasn’t it? I didn’t ask you to 
come across the river!” 

“ That is quite true. I am cross this morning. I 
apologize. I will take myself off.” 

He took up his oars, but he did not begin to row. 
He tilted his straw hat back a little, and gave a long 
look at her fresh, handsome face. 

“ Then good-by, ” said she. 

“Wait a moment. Do you ever read fairy tales, 
Miss Tryphena?” 

She looked at him with scorn. 

“Fairytales! Of course not!” 

“ But you did once. ” 

“I did when I was a child, I suppose. But that,” 
she went on emphatically, “was a long time ago.” 

“ Well, we differ about that. At any rate you have 
heard of men who were haunted by a good and by an 
evil spirit, the good drawing them one way, the bad 
another?” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re my good spirit. But the evil one has got 
the best of it. Good-by!” 


OUR WIDOW . 


239 


And before the astonished girl could recover breath 
to utter a word in reply, he had raised his hat and 
rowed away rapidly, without another look at her. 

When he had gone a couple of hundred yards, how- 
ever, he rested a moment on his oars, and looked at 
her. He seemed to hesitate, and it came into the 
girPs mind that he was waiting for a gesture, even a 
smile, of invitation, to bring him back. 

But at that moment, as she looked at his face un- 
distracted by the sound of his voice, the thought that 
he had indeed been her father’s mysterious assailant 
of the night struck her again with full force, and 
with a shudder she turned away. 

When half-way up the lawn she looked round. 

Mr. Brown had disappeared. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


Ox coming down to breakfast that morning, Bab 
found beside her plate a letter, addressed in a hand- 
writing she had never seen. The blood flew to her 
face, however, for she knew intuitively that it was 
from Bradley Ingledew. 

Mr. Prewen had, of course, not come down to 
breakfast, so there were only the eyes of the ladies 
upon her ; but those eyes were eloquent. 

Tryphena, who had not been let into her sister’s 
secret, giggled. 

“ I thought you boasted that he never wrote to you, 
and that you never wrote to him !” she whispered. 

Then Bab gave her a cold glance, and Molly frowned 
and winked her into silence. 

Bab slipped the letter into hor pocket, and did not 
open it until she was alone in the garden, when the 
meal was over. Her hands were cold and trembling 
as she tore the envelope. There was no beginning 
and no end to the note ; it was the merest fragment 
of an epistle — a summons and nothing more. 

“ Be in the grounds at Hampton Court to-day at 
five, under the limes, by the little stream where we 
found the forget-me-nots.” 

Molly came up presently and wanted to know 
what the note said. Bab told her. 

“ You won’t go, will you?” said Molly doubtfully. 

240 


OUR WIDOW. 


241 


" Yes, I shall,” said Bab with a little frown. “It 
makes no difference, as you said yourself.” 

Now Molly had not exactly said that, and Bab knew 
she had not. But being in the position of the person 
in a glass-house, who cannot throw stones at another 
young woman who defies convention, Molly made no 
further protest. But she watched her sister with anx- 
ious eyes as the latter started on her walk to Hamp- 
ton Court Palace that afternoon. 

Pull of anxiety and curiosity as she was, Bab was 
not the girl to make the mistake of arriving at the 
place of meeting too soon. When she sauntered 
along the broad terrace in front of the Palace, Brad- 
ley was already pacing the gardens, with a crimson 
face, full of anxiety lest she should not come. 

She caught sight of him before he saw her, and a 
pang shot through her heart. How could she ever 
have deceived herself into thinking she did not care 
for him, when the first glimpse of his handsome, 
good-natured face between the trees set her heart 
beating quickly, and brought the tears very near her 
eyes, at the thought of the barrier between them? 

When he did see her, he gave a perceptible start 
and it was evident that he had to put constraint upon 
himself to refrain from running to meet her. She, 
on her side, though she had been quite as eager for 
the meeting as he a moment before, experienced a 
sudden reluctance, a strange new* sensation of shyness 
which put leaden weights upon her feet. 

And she found herself wishing he did not look so 
nice, so much better dressed than any other man ever 
looked ; that his blue eyes would not look at her in the 
16 


242 


OUR WIDOW. 


way they did; that very movement as he walked 
toward her did not bring so many memories of the 
time that had passed. He wore a light gray suit, and 
a brown hat, and a scarf of the very pale pearl-gray 
she loved, and she thought that he had never looked 
so good-looking before. 

And she wondered how he thought she was looking, 
and wished she had put on black instead of mouse- 
color, as it would have made her look more dig- 
nified. 

The meeting by the fountain was the quietest in 
the world. She stopped and looked at the gold-fish, 
waiting for him to come up to her ; and when he did 
so, she stood looking down at the fish and said noth- 
ing. 

She saw that the hand that he put up to twist 
his mustache was trembling. Then she looked up 
coldly. 

“ Well?” said she, slightly raising her eyebrows. 

He was pitifully nervous and humble. He breathed 
quite hard as he spoke. 

“I was afraid you — you would not come!” said he 
hoarsely. 

And she gave a swift glance at the blue eyes which 
were generally so full of laughter, and felt, oh, so 
sorry for him ! 

“I thought it best to come,” she said with dignity. 
“It was only fair to hear what you had to say.” 

“Fve nothing to say,” said Bradley dismally. 
“Nothing but what you know.” 

“What you did not mean me to know,” added Bab, 
severely. 


OUR WIDOW. 


243 


“Bab, Bab, don’t be unkind! I didn’t think it 
would do any harm to hold my tongue about it, and — • 
and it did make a difference, did make things jollier, 
easier, for you not to know, now didn’t it?” 

“It makes things decidedly less jolly now!” said 
Bab tartly. “ What right had you to pass yourself 
off as an unmarried man, when you had a wife all the 
time! You know it was wrong; it’s of no use pre- 
tending it wasn’t.” 

“Bab, Bab, listen. I don’t say I did right, but 
I’m not the blackguard you want to make out. When 
a man’s done a thing in a hurry that he’ s sorry for and 
ashamed of directly afterward, and when there doesn’t 
seem any particular reason for anybody knowing, he 
generally keeps it to himself. That’s true, isn’t it?” 

But Bab said nothing. He went on : 

“That was the case with my marriage. I have 
nothing to say against her, except that I know she did 
it because I was pretty well off, and not because she 
cared a hang about me. She doesn’t; I don’t believe 
she ever did.” 

“ She has some discernment, ” said Bab cuttingly. 

“Oh, well, you must say that if you like. But 
Bab, dear old Bab ” 

“Don’t call me that. Don’t dare to call me that 
again!” 

She had turned upon him quite fiercely, and sent 
him staggering back a step with the mere force of her 
look. But then there came a catch in her breath, and 
she had to turn away quickly herself. 

“Very well, Bab,” said he meekly. “Do you want 
to hear any more?” 


244 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Not particularly, but — but you can say it if you 
like!” 

Perhaps he saw, in the corner of her mouth which 
was nearest to him, a sign of softening. At any rate 
he went on with a little more spirit : 

“ But I never thought any harm would come of my 
keeping it quiet to anybody, and certainly not to you. 
You were ready for a flirtation ” 

“Not with a married man!” retorted Bab. 

“But if you only wanted a flirtation, and didn’t 
know it was with a married man, where was the 
harm? If I had told you at first, it would have put 
a stop to it altogether, I suppose?” 

“Certainly it would, Mr. Ingledew.” 

“Now that’s absurd, to call me Mr. Ingledew. 
Because I’m just as much ‘ Bradley’ as I was before. 
And you’ll always think of me as just ‘ Bradley,’ 
whatever adjective you put before the name!” 

“ However I think of you won’ t matter. For I shall 
never speak to you again after to-day.” 

“0 Bab, my darling, you don’t mean that! 
Look here, Bab, what harm is there in my seeing you? 
In my taking you for a row on the water, or for a 
drive through Bichmond Park? You’ve often said 
yourself what nonsense it was that girls shouldn’t 
go about as they pleased with anybody they 
liked.” 

Bab uttered a low, heart-broken cry. 

“I said those things, those mad, crack-brained 
things, because I didn’t kn-o-o-w! Now I do know, 
and I can’t do those things any more! I should be as 
bad as people, straitlaced people think, if I could! 


OUR WIDOW. 


245 


And I think you must know that yourself, Bradley. 
Oh, oh, don’t ask me, don’t talk like that any more. 
I like you too much not to want to think the best, the 
very best of you. But I can’t if you want me to go 
on in the old way now ! There was no harm in it 
then, so it seemed to me. But there would be harm 
now! Don’t dare to say any more now. Now good- 
by; shake hands, and say good-by.” 

“ Oh, Bab, I can’t. I do love you so, little one, I 
didn’t know how much till last night. Don’t be too 
cruel, little one, don’t be too hard. Look, look, Bab! 
I’m married, but I have no wife; and I’m in love, 
but I’ve got no sweetheart. Bab, darling Bab, for- 
give me. Don’t be so hard.” 

“I’m not hard. I’m only afraid of being too 
so-o-oft,” sobbed she. “Aren’t you going to shake 
hands?” 

“Not here. I will, if you like, under the lime- 
trees. ” 

But Bab guessed that he wanted to kiss her, and 
for a long time she was obdurate. But she loved him 
too well, she had indeed kissed him too often, to be 
able to hold out forever. So, instead of the formal 
parting in the sunlight, near the gold-fish, which she 
had planned, they exchanged a lover’s farewell under 
the trees. And then, weeping hot tears under her 
flimsy tulle veil and for once forgetting about her ap- 
pearance as she walked fast away along the road home 
— alone, as she had insisted on going, Bab chewed the 
cud of bitter-sweet remembrance, and recognized the 
fact that her romance begun in folly had ended in a 
gnawing grief. 


246 


OUR WIDOW. 


When she got home she found that Tryphena had 
taken it into her head to go up to town in search of 
Mrs. Weir. 

The fact was that the young girl was torn with 
doubts and questionings concerning Mr. Brown ; and 
failing to get any substantial comfort or counsel from 
Molly, she had resolved on applying to the one friend 
on whose judgment she felt that she could thoroughly 
rely. 

It was between six and seven o’clock when she 
reached Cirencester Terrace, and Johns opened the 
door to her with an expression of surprise on his face. 
He looked altogether disturbed and ill at ease. 

“Is Mrs. Weir in?” asked Tryphena. 

“Ho, miss. But one of her friends is here,” 
answered Johns with some asperity. 

“ Who is it?” 

“ A gentleman who often comes, but who never gives 
his name, miss. He seems to have the run of the 
house. And as Mrs. Weir said he was to do as he 
liked, I suppose it’s all right, miss.” 

“Of course, Johns.” 

But although Tryphena answered in a matter-of- 
course tone, she did not feel so easy in her mind as 
she appeared to be. This friend who had “ the run of 
the house” could be, she supposed, no other than Mr. 
Brown. And it was about this very Mr. Brown, and 
his mysterious personality, that she had come to con- 
sult Mrs. Weir. 

“Is he in the drawing-room, Johns?” she asked as 
she began to go upstairs. 

“I don’t know, I’m sure, miss, where he is.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


247 


“Mrs. Weir got our telegram, I suppose, telling 
her papa had arrived at Teddington.” 

“Yes, miss.” 

She went up the stairs, and J ohns disappeared into 
his own part of the premises. 

Tryphena looked into the drawing-room; there 
was no one there. Into the morning-room, with the 
same result. Then she went downstairs and opened 
the door of the dining-room; that also was ten- 
antless. • 

Last of all she tried the study. Before she opened 
the door she hard slight sounds within, so that it was 
with a loudly beating heart that she turned the handle. 
The door opened without the least noise, and she 
looked in without disturbing the solitary occupant of 
the room, who was busily engaged in examining the 
contents of some open jewel-cases which lay upon the 
table. Tryphena* s heart beat fast. It was never 
very light in this room, which was at the back of the 
house, hemmed in by high walls and chimney-pots. 
And the tenant of the room had his back to her. But 
she knew him; she recognized him as Mr. Brown; 
and she felt sick and cold as she stood watching him, 
wondering what he was doing, alone, in her father’s 
study. 

And she looked at the table, and caught sight of 
the treasures over which he was poring; glittering 
diamonds, and deep-red rubies, and then, to her un- 
speakable horror, she saw him take up the cases, 
which were three in number, put one in his pocket, 
and turn to leave the room, with the two others under 
his arm. 


248 


OUR WIDOW . 


A cry of horror escaped her lips. He started, 
and caught sight of her. 

“ What are you doing with those cases ?” cried she, 
in a hoarse, tremulous voice. 

Mr. Brown seemed confused. He did not answer 
at once. Then he said, in a cold tone : 

“ I suppose, Miss Frewen, you are not going to ac- 
cuse me of stealing them.” 

“ What are you doing with them?” she repeated in 
a louder tone. “I know them; I have seen them 
before. They belong to one of papa’s clients. 
They ” 

At that moment the door was pushed open, and 
Mrs. Weir, looking white and frightened, appeared 
just inside the doorway. And she and Mr. Brown ex- 
changed glances of mutual understanding, she looking 
a question, while he shook his head. 

“My dear child, they didn’t tell me you were here,” 
said Mrs. Weir, as she went quickly up to Tryphena, 
and put her arms round her. 

“They told me you were out,” answered the girl. 

Then, turning her head again to look at Mr. Brown, 
she saw that he had hastily left the room. She sprang 
away from Mrs. Weir’s restraining arms, and ran into 
the hall, just in time to hear and to see the hall-door 
close behind Mr. Brown. 

Trembling from head to foot, she turned to Mrs. 
Weir, who had followed her. 

“He has taken some jewels, some family jewels 
worth ever so much that papa had in his care!” stam- 
mered Tryphena with white lips. 

“Oh, surely not, dear!” said Mrs. Weir. 


OUR WIDOW. 


249 


But the girl, sick at heart and almost paralyzed 
with terror, saw that her beloved Mrs. Weir knew 
what had happened as well as she did. 

Mr. Brown was a thief, and Mrs. Weir was in league 
with him! 


CHAPTEB XXVIII. 


Tryphena was a robust young woman, not ad- 
dicted to fainting fits or hysterical outbursts of weep- 
ing. 

But at the moment when the apparently overwhelm- 
ing proof was given her of the conspiracy between 
Mrs. Weir and Mr. Brown to rob her father, she broke 
down. Staggering to one of the seats in the hall, she 
sank down and burst into tears. 

Mrs. Weir seemed to hesitate whether she should 
go to her, as the girl, after one reproachful glance in 
her direction, did not again look up. Edgar’s voice 
suddenly startled them both. He had come out of the 
dining-room, and was standing with his hands in his 
pockets, and with a very disagreeable expression on 
his face. 

“What’s all this noise about, Tryphena? And 
what are you doing up here at all?” said he im- 
patiently. 

The girl struggled with her sobs, and stood up. 
Even then she was only anxious to hear something 
which would clear her darling Mrs. Weir of the guilt 
which seemed to be gathering round her. 

“ I don’t want anything from you,” she said, trying 
to steady her voice. “I want to speak to Mrs. Weir. 
I want to ask her — to ask her why this Mr. Brown was 
250 


OUR WIDOW. 251 

allowed to go into papa’s study, and — and carry off 
those — those cases.” 

“ What cases?” asked Edgar, frowning. 

Then Mrs. Weir looked at him, and he altered his 
tone. 

“Oh, it’s all right,” said he. “He was sent here 
for them, and he was perfectly within his rights in 
taking them.” 

Tryphena hesitated. She would have been glad to 
believe this, but it seemed too improbable. A bright 
thought occurred to her. 

“May I tell papa he has taken them?” she 
asked. 

Again Mrs. Weir exchanged glances with Edgar. 
Then he said shortly : 

“ I should strongly advise you not to mention any- 
thing about it to the governor. You might have more 
sense than to suggest it. You know he’s been very 
ill, and doesn’t want to be worried about business 
matters.” 

“But this is such curious business!” protested poor 
Tryphena. “ And I want to know who this man is, 
this Mr. Brown.” 

“ Why do you want to know more than that, that 
he is Mr. Brown?” 

“Because — because,” faltered out the girl at last, 
“ he attacked papa last night, outside the cottage, and 
flung him down on the ground. And papa said he 
was a scoundrel and a — ” here her sobs again threat- 
ened to choke her voice, “ and a blackmailer.” 

At these words both Mrs. Weir and Edgar stood 
aghast. 


252 


OUR WIDOW. 


They looked at each other ; they looked at Tryphena. 
It was Mrs. Weir who spoke first: 

“You say Mr. Brown attacked your father! Are 
you sure?” 

“ Quite, quite sure, ” answered the girl, with another 
sob. “ Do you think I could make a mistake? Why, 
I was looking out of the window and I saw him look 
up.” 

“Then it’s all up!” exclaimed Edgar laconically, 
as he turned abruptly, and re-entered the dining- 
room. 

Mrs. Weir sighed wearily. 

“Now, little girl,” she said at last rather impa- 
tiently, “ you had better go back to Teddington. And 
take all the care of your father you can, for he is far 
from well yet.” 

Tryphena looked at her friend, and a strong impulse 
of love and trust, in spite of everything, seized her 
and prompted her to surprise the lady by a hug. 

“ Look here, ” she whispered, with sudden excite- 
ment, “Em not going to trouble my head about all 
these strange things. Em going to remember what 
you’ve done for us girls, and what you’ve tried to do, 
and Em going to forget everything else. Mrs. Weir, 
dear Mrs. Weir, I’ll do whatever you want me to, 
just the same. And I won’t say anything to papa, 
because I know that whatever you do is right.” 

Mrs. Weir took this rather touching little outburst 
curiously. She listened in complete silence to the 
young girl’s words, and then, with a hurried kiss, 
dismissed her, opening the door herself, and letting 
her out. 


OUR WIDOW. 


253 


Tryphena could not help feeling rather hurt by this 
treatment, but she persisted stubbornly in stifling her 
doubts all the way down to Teddington, where she 
arrived very late. 

It was Bab whom she met first on her arrival. 

“ Where have you been? You’ll catch it!” washer 
encouraging greeting. “ I went out this afternoon, 
and got back quite early, and papa was horribly 
cross.” 

“Yes, he gave her ‘beans/” added Molly, coming 
up from the kitchen garden with a cabbage-leaf full 
of gooseberries, and speaking with conviction. “ He’s 
up, and in the drawing-room, and ever so much better, 
I should think, unless he’s been shamming all the 
time!” 

“Sh-sh!” said Bab. 

“And Miss Roscoe’s fawning on him and cringing 
to him worse than ever, and I know she’s making it 
hot for us!” 

At that moment, as if in confirmation of Molly’s 
words, the dining-room window was opened quickly, 
and Miss Roscoe’s voice called to them in the dusk: 

“Molly, Bab, you are to come in directly. Mr. 
Frewen says so. He is very angry with Tryphena 
for not being home, and he wants you two to tell him 
where she is gone to* He says he is sure you know.” 

“Tryphena’s here to answer for herself,” said 
Molly. 

And they trooped in, much depressed, and presented 
themselves in the drawing-room, where they found 
Mr. Frewen walking up and down in the very worst 
of humors. He had learned something more about his 


254 


OUR WIDOW. 


daughters and their independent ways, during his en- 
forced stay in his own house, than had ever come to 
his ears before. And having taxed Miss Eoscoe with 
neglect of her charges, he had learned still more; 
for the ex-governess, finding herself cornered, had 
done her best to shift the blame from her own shoul- 
ders to those of the girls themselves and of Mrs. 
Weir. 

All three girls were frightened by the expression 
they saw on his withered and hard face when they 
entered the room. He was leaning on a stick, which 
he raised from time to time and shook in their faces 
as he harangued them in words so harsh that the color 
left their young cheeks and the tears came to their 
eyes as they listened. 

“So,” he began, emphasizing his opening with a 
hard rap with his stick on the floor — “ so I find you 
have been deceiving me, young ladies ; that instead of 
conducting yourselves like gentlewomen, you have 
been doing everything in your power to bring disgrace 
not only on yourselves but on me, going in and out of 
the house at all sorts of hours, and picking up ac- 
quaintances here, there, and everywhere, like — like 
low-born young women!” 

“Papa!” protested Molly. 

“Silence! You have to listen to me now. I say 
you have behaved as no decently brought-up girls 
should behave ; that you have made me ashamed of 
being your father ! How can I go back to my office, 
and look people in the face, knowing what I do now? 
Knowing, as I do now, that they are all laughing in 
their sleeves and pointing at me as the father of a 


OUR WIDOW. 


255 


lot of loose-mannered girls who are known all over 
the town?” 

“Papa!” cried Molly again, loudly and firmly. 
“You shan’t say such things of us! Things that are 
not true, that everybody knows are not true!” 

“What! What! What! You dare to interrupt 
me! You dare to tell me to my face that what I say 
isn’t true?” almost shrieked the excited old gentle- 
man. “Why, this is monstrous, worse than any- 
thing! To be flatly contradicted, given the lie direct, 
by my own daughters ! I never heard of such a thing ! 
It’s monstrous! Monstrous!” 

“And I say it’s monstrous that you should say such 
things, believe such things, of your own daughters, 
papa!” persisted Molly, who was shaking like a leaf, 
and speaking in a hoarse, croaking voice, but very 
quietly. “ If people have told you that we pick up 
acquaintances anywhere, and that we don’t care whom 
we associate with, they have told you falsehoods.” 

Instinctively Molly had dropped her usual slangy 
tone, and she spoke with modest girlish dignity in de- 
fence of her sisters and herself. 

But the mere fact of her daring to contradict him, 
to suggest that he was not wholly in the right, was a 
worse offence in the stern eyes of Mr. Frewen than 
the misdemeanors of which he accused his daughters. 
He was a domestic tyrant, who had always looked 
upon girls as useless and expensive encumbrances, 
whose sole duty was to keep as much as possible out 
of the sight and out of the way of the unfortunate 
person who had been saddled by a malignant Provi- 
dence with their maintenance. And now these offen- 


256 


OUR WIDOW. 


sive young people, not content with the odium they 
had brought upon him by daring to have separate and 
independent existence, presumed to contradict him ! 

It was too much. Mr. Frewen paused for breath 
before he spoke again, and when he did so, he raised 
his clenched fist and shook it with rage. 

“It's the truth, the truth, nothing but the truth!” 
cried he. “ Here’s Tryphena been going about with 
a man who was a complete stranger to her only a few 
days ago. Can you deny that? But I suppose you 
could deny anything, all of you ! One backs up the 
other. You’re a bad lot, a bad lot altogether! But 
Fve done with you! I wash my hands of you! I’ll 
not keep you under my roof any longer!” 

The girls stood silent at these words, which, com- 
ing from the mouth of their harsh and stern father, 
had more weight than they deserved. No doubt Mr. 
Frewen, though undoubtedly he meant them at the 
time, would have simmered down by the morning, and 
would have been ready to accept a humble apology 
and to extend to them his qualified forgiveness, upon 
receiving a promise of better behavior. 

But the girls never thought of this. Accustomed 
from their earliest infancy to be afraid of him, they 
accepted his judgment, his sentence, as final. Bab 
was the only one of the three who entertained a doubt 
of his remaining permanently in this mind. 

There was a pause when Mr. Frewen pronounced 
this sentence of banishment against his daughters; 
Tryphena smothered a sob ; Molly set her teeth hard, 
and began to look sullen and defiant; Bab kept her 
eyes down and remained immovable. Unluckily, Miss 


OUR WIDOW. 


257 


Roscoe though this a fitting moment to interfere, hop- 
ing to put herself right with the girls by a word on 
their behalf, which yet should be so deferentially 
uttered as not to offend Mr. Frewen. 

Ambling up to him from behind, therefore, with a 
pocket-handkerchief to her dry eyes, she bleated forth 
these words : 

“Oh, no, Mr. Frewen, you surely won’t be quite so 
severe as that! You surely won’t, now, will you? 
I know your good heart better. They may have been 
a little unwise, but after all they are your very own 
children, aren’t they now? And I’m sure they’re 
quite ready to promise to do just what you would wish 
for the future. Come now, you’ll promise anything 
if your dear papa will forgive you, won’t you?” 

And she turned, venturing to lay a fat and flabby 
hand on Mr. Frewen’ s coat-sleeve, from him to the 
girls. 

Now her words were harmless enough, but there 
was something in her tone and manner extremely 
offensive to the three high-spirited girls. They did, 
all of them, more or less, recognize the error of their 
ways, having been forced to do this by a sudden in- 
rush of misfortune. And they were all therefore in a 
mood in which penitence and a promise of better things 
would have been natural and easy. But the necessary 
tact for extracting such a promise was not Miss Ros- 
coe’s. They felt that they loathed her for every word 
of her abject, cringing appeal; that there was dire 
offence in every turn of her slow-moving head, in 
every wag of her well-meaning and complacent fore- 
finger. 


17 


258 


OUR WIDOW. 


So, instead of showing themselves sympathetic to 
her appeal, they all remained silent, perhaps sullen; 
while by little frowns and pursings of the lips they 
showed impatience at the manner if not the matter of 
her discourse. 

Then Mr. Frewen hastened to cut off what slender 
chance of a compromise there had seemed to be. 

“Miss Eoscoe, you are wasting your breath,” said 
he. “They’re a pack of stubborn, ill-conditioned, 
good-for-nothing young hussies, and I’ll not have the 
responsibility of looking after them any longer. I’ll 
not keep a home for them ; I’ll send them all off to a 
Sisterhood, or school, anywhere where they’ll be well 
looked after; and within a week too!” 

“Oh, no, Mr. Frewen, you won’t do that! Think 
of their chances of getting married!” 

“Chances, chances! They have none!” cried Mr. 
Frewen. “What man in his senses would marry any 
one of them? They’re good enough to make fools of, 
such girls as they are! But not to marry!” 

Miss Eoscoe saw the harm he had done, if he did 
not, when the three girls looked up, almost at the 
same moment, shot one proud glance at their father, 
and then instinctively drew nearer to each other. 
Molly was spokeswoman for them all again. 

“We’re not so bad as you think, papa. And we’re 
not ungrateful to you, though I dare say we’ve not 
been very good daughters. But if you want to turn 
us out, we shan’t be so long as you think in knding 
new homes to go to. I shall be married next week, 
and then I can take care of my sisters till they many 
too.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


259 


This announcement was rather a sensational one, 
and then a pause followed. But Mr. Frewen, still 
more incensed by this continued defiance, affected not 
only to take no interest in it, but to disbelieve it alto- 
gether. He shrugged his shoulders. 

“Fm sure I wish the man joy of such a baggage!” 
said he abruptly, as he turned his back upon his 
daughters, and with his hands behind him, and his 
stick dangling, he walked to the other end of the room. 

Bab seized the opportunity of making an escape. 
She perceived that every word which was uttered by 
either side increased the general irritation, and feeling 
strongly the force of the proverb that “ Least said is 
the soonest mended,” she effected a retreat. With a 
nod to one and a wink to the other, she got both of 
her sisters out of the room with her, and closed the 
door softly, before Mr. Frewen had any idea of her 
intention. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


Bab dragged her sisters along with her to her own 
room, and then locked the door. It was the first time 
she and Molly had included Tryphena in a consulta- 
tion of importance ; but they felt that there was now a 
bond between them, and Tryphena had moreover con- 
ducted herself during the recent trying ordeal with 
exemplary discretion, not opening her mouth once 
while it lasted. 

The youngest sister, however, very nearly lost the 
respect she had earned for herself so newly, by sub- 
siding into an hysterical giggle as soon as they were 
all locked in together. 

“ You did stand up to him, Molly!” she whispered 
with excitement and admiration. 

Bab frowned. 

“ Molly, what were we going to do?” said she. “ Of 
course he’ll cool down, and forget half that he’s said 
in the morning. But we shall have an awful time of 
it after this!” 

“I shan’t,” said Molly coolly. “I’ve had a let- 
ter every day for a fortnight, and sometimes two in a 
day, begging me to get married at once. And now I 
mean to!” 

Tryphena looked rather startled. 

“Do you mean it, Molly? Not — not Sir Walter?” 
she added in a frightened whisper. 

260 


OUR WIDOW. 


261 


‘Why not Sir Walter ?” retorted her sister irri- 
tably. “ I don’t know why everybody thinks it neces- 
sary to mention his name with bated breath! As if 
he were Old Nick himself!” 

“ Well, he must be first cousin to that gentleman, 
if all we’ve heard is true,” replied Tryphena lugu- 
briously. “ I wouldn’t trust myself with him if I were 
you, Molly!” 

Molly was on the point of making an angry retort, 
when Bab interposed with oil for the troubled waters. 

“ Girls, don’t quarrel now,” she said solemnly. 
“ Things are too serious for that! And none of us 
have been so lucky in our love affairs that we can 
turn up our noses at anybody else’s!” 

And she gave a glance at Tryphena, which made 
that young woman blush and hang her head a little. 
Bab began to feel, as indeed Molly did also, that no 
great progress toward a solution of the difficulty, if 
indeed there were one, would be found until Try- 
phena had been banished from the conference. They 
were both rather startled when their younger sister 
suddenly burst into tears, and, as if guessing their 
thoughts, sprang up and made a dash toward the 
door. 

“ You are neither of you so unlucky as I am!” she 
sobbed. “ Because you’ve got each other to talk to, 
and I’ve got nobody now Mrs. Weir ” 

She stopped short, and grew crimson. The other 
girls looked at her aghast. 

For Tryphena to make even such an attempt at an 
insinuation against Mrs. Weir was portentous. They 
were longing for an explanation. But they got none; 


262 


OUR WIDOW. 


for Tryphena, sobbing still, and ready to bite her 
tongue out, blundered to the key, turned it in the 
lock, and thundered down the corridor to her own 
room. 

“ Poor little Phena !” said Molly. “ She talks about 
Mrs. Weir, but the person she is thinking about is 
Mr. Brown!” 

Bab sighed. 

“I knew there was something wrong about that 
man!” she said, shaking her head. “And she has 
found out something more than we know, I suppose! 
Something, perhaps, when she was in town this after- 
noon! I wonder what she did there, by the by? 
She said nothing about her journey!” 

“She is sure to have been in mischief!” remarked 
Molly. “We always are!” 

This recalled Bab to the subject in hand. 

“Look here, Molly,” she said gravely, “I wouldn’t 
write to Sir Walter if I were you — at least not yet! 
I’m going to send a note to Sam •” 

Molly bounded from her seat. 

“ Bab, how dare you ! You know you are not to 
mention that fellow’s name!” 

“All right. But I’m just going to write him a 
note, and I want you not to write to— to anybody else 
till I get an answer.” 

Molly, who was leaning against the dressing-table, 
drew one foot restlessly backward and forward over 
the carpet. In spite of all her efforts to appear greatly 
offended and annoyed by Bab’s suggestion, she be- 
trayed agitation of a more tender sort in the curves of 
her mouth, in the tear which trickled from under one 


OUR WIDOW. 


263 


lowered eyelid, in heaving bosom and quivering fin- 
gers. 

After all her resolutions not to think of the infa- 
mous renegade Sam, was it possible that there lingered 
in her heart a hope that he would come back to her, 
or at least that he would be interested in the fact that 
in a few days she would be eternally lost to him? 

At last she looked up, and the tears fell. 

“What on earth have you got to say to him?” she 
asked haughtily. “ Or do you care for him yourself, 
Bab?” 

Bad, very solemnly, shook her head. 

“It wouldn’t be of any use if I did,” she said 
simply. “And I don’t. I c-c-can’t forget Br-r-rad- 
ley !” 

“ Well, don’t cry. If we once begin cr-rying,” said 
Molly, turning away to wipe her own eyes, “ we shall 
none of us ever leave off! What do you want to say 
to — to the creature?” 

“ Oh, I should only just mention that — that,” Bab 
looked at her sister askance and chose her words care- 
fully, “that you thought of getting married, and — 
and ” 

“To Sir Walter Hay,” put in Molly emphatically. 

“Oh, yes, yes, I should say that. And — and — 
well, that’s about all. For, of course,” she remarked 
ingenuously, “ if that isn’t enough, why nothing would 
be!” 

“Well, you may write that if you like,” said Molly 
graciously, as she left the room. 

Although she was so absolutely indifferent on the 
matter, Molly kept watch on her sister’s door, saw 


264 


OUR WIDOW. 


Bab go downstairs with a letter in her hand, and heard 
her tell the housemaid to take it to the post. 

“ Did you write that note you talked about?” she 
asked Bab in an off-hand tone, as she wished her 
sister good-night. 

“ Why, you know I did,” said Bab. “ You were on 
the stairs.” 

“Well, it might have been some other letter,” re- 
torted Molly, petulant at having been found out. 

But Bab went to bed with a little comfort in her 
heart, on her sister’s account. It would be beautiful 
if, through her suggestion, Molly’s romance should 
end happily after all! Although Molly would not 
acknowledge it even to herself, she had been bitterly 
hurt by the desertion of the faithful Sam, whose de- 
votion had grown precious when it was missed. But 
she still believed, poor child, that she was in love with 
Sir Walter Hay, and that her feeling about Sam was 
only natural irritation at his senseless and sudden 
neglect. 

He was an old friend, nothing more; but such a 
very old friend as that had no business to turn “ nasty” 
just because she chose to marry some one else. If he 
would only have the sense and good feeling to repent 
of his disgraceful conduct, and to tend her his good 
wishes for her happiness, and perhaps a card, she 
should be happier in the great step she was going to 
take. 

So he said to herself as she went to sleep that night 
on a pillow which was wet with furtive tears. 

The next day passed feverishly for Molly, gloomily 
for all of them. Mr. Frewen remained in his bed- 


OUR WIDOW. 


265 


loom, and refused to see any of his daughters, though 
they sent him humble and dutiful messages both by 
Miss Eoscoe and the servants. He sent no messages 
in return, but sent back their notes unopened. 

By the evening post the girls had reckoned that they 
mighu get an answering note from Sam. Molly and 
Bab put on their hats, having first with unusual docil- 
ity mentioned their intention of taking a walk to Miss 
Eoscoe, and walked down the road to meet the post- 
man. They did not say why they were going, even 
to each other, but Molly knew as well as Bab what 
the object of the expedition was. 

And when he came, he brought no letter! 

Molly walked on steadily, with her eyes blinded 
by tears. Presently Bab, whom she had left behind, 
overtook her, hissing in her ear : 

“ Molly, Pm going back! Don’t you see? There, 
under the trees, by the side of the road! I won’t 
meet him!” 

“Who? Sam?” cried poor Molly, not knowing the 
degree of joyous hopefulness there was in her tone. 

“Sam! No. Bradley!” 

“ Oh!” 

Deeply disappointed, Molly turned abruptly. But 
Bab stopped her, pulling nervously at her sleeves. 

“No, no, Molly, don’t come back with me. I want 
you to see him, to speak to him, to — to hear what he 
has to say! There’s no harm in that, is there?” 

Molly looked in her sister’s agitated face, and burst 
into a hollow laugh. 

“Bab,” she said, “we are a merry family, we are — 
we are, we are.” 


266 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ But you’ll see him?” 

“Yes, if you want me to, of course. But, mind, 
Bab, I shall think it only right to be very severe!” 
said Molly, in a stern, elder-sisterly manner. 

“Oh, yes, he won’t mind that. Give it him hot!” 

Then Bab fled back toward the house, and Molly 
went on slowly down the road. And Bradley came in 
a hesitating manner from his side of the road to meet 
her. Molly drew herself up and looked at him with 
an air of great sternness. Rather to her annoyance, 
but also rather to her relief, Bradley smiled as he 
raised his hat. 

“ It’s no use, Molly. Your features are not adapted 
for that sort of expression. You must give it up.” 

Molly thought there was merit in the suggestion, 
so she gave it up, and said simply : 

“What are you doing down here? You have no 
business to come here now, you know you haven’t, 
Bradley.” 

“ The public roads are open to all, even to the male- 
factor, ” replied he stubbornly. “ And I was not going 
farther than the road. You can’t shut me out of Ted- 
dington. And it’s absurd to pretend that I am not to 
be spoken to, when I haven’t done any harm to any- 
body.” 

Molly sighed, and declined to argue the point. 

“How’s Bab?” asked he very meekly, in alow 
voice, after a pause. 

“Barbara is quite well, thank you.” 

“It doesn’t do any good to the cause of morality to 
call her Barbara,” said he. “ She’s Bab to you, and 
she’ll always be Bab to me. Molly, I’m miserable! 


OUR WIDOW. 


267 


I didn’t know — I hadn’t the least idea how much I 
cared about her. I can’t think about anything or 
anybody else!” 

“But you mustn’t think about her,” said Molly, 
angrily. “You must think about your wife!” 

Bradley moved impatiently. 

“Molly, don’t talk like that; don’t be unkind. I 
know you only do it because you think it’s the proper 
way to talk to me, and because you are a child, and 
don’t understand! But a designing woman who gets 
hold of a man years younger than herself and marries 
him because he’s pretty well off, is not the sort of 
wife a man cares to think about more than he can 
help.” 

“But — but it’s very rough upon Bab!” said 
Molly. 

“ And upon me too, Molly ! Bab doesn’t feel it more 
than I do, or so much. After all, she’s free, and 
she’ll have another fellow after her before you can 
look round. While I’m tied for life to this artful 
woman, who never comes near me except when she 
wants to get something out of me, or to make herself 
disagreeable.” 

“Well, I’m glad she happened to come down the 
other day!” said Molly, unsympathetically. 

“ So am I — in a way — of course, ” said Bradley, rue- 
fully. “ I should never have had the pluck to — to 
break it to Bab myself! But — but it’s jolly hard 
lines, and I don’t feel it any less because I could write 
reams of poetry about it, or anything of that sort!” 

“Well, it’s all over now, that’s one good thing,” 
said Molly, with forced cheerfulness. “ Good-night. 


268 


OUR WIDOW . 


I must run back, for we’re being kept like nuns now, 
and papa watches us as we go in and out!” 

“ Well, let me tell you what I came about. I’ve 
found out for Bab who that Mr. Brown is!” 

“ For Bab? For Try phena, you mean!” said Molly 
quickly, and without thinking. 

Bradley looked much disturbed. 

“ Tryphena! Why, surely you don’t mean that she 
took any notice of the fellow!” 

Molly turned white, and nodded reluctantly. 

“Mrs. Weir introduced him, you know,” she whis- 
pered breathlessly. “Why, who is he? Tell me — 
quick!” 

Bradley looked shocked. 

“He’s a detective!” he gasped out at last. 

Molly almost screamed. 

“Oh, you’re not sure!” 

“I am though. I came down to tell you. I’ve 
been wandering about since five o’clock on the chance 
of meeting one of you, and I was just going to write 
a note at the inn here, and send it up. He’s a de- 
tective employed by Lord Cloone, who is one of your 
father’s clients, and who is now on his way to Eng- 
land; and will be at the Metropole next week.” 

“Yes, I know. I’ve heard that,” said Molly with 
white lips, “papa is his trustee.” 

“ It seems, ” went on Bradley, “ that Lord Cloone 
knew Mrs. Weir, or else knew something about her; 
and when he heard of her being in your father’s house, 
he set this detective to work. I only heard it to-day, 
on the best possible authority, and I thought I had 
better let you know at once.” 


OUR WIDOW. 


269 


Bab looked frightened and puzzled. 

“It seems a roundabout way of going to work,” 
said she; “why didn’t this Lord Cloone write and 
warn papa, instead of employing a detective?” 

“Oh, he’s an old crank, Lord Cloone, who never 
does anything like anybody else,” said Bradley, avoid- 
ing her eyes. 

Molly remained for a few moments in deep thought. 
Then she started, and, without thinking, held out her 
hand. Bradley seized it at once, and shook it with a 
hearty grip. % 

“Oh!” exclaimed Molly, reddening with confusion, 
when she perceived the act of friendship into which 
she had been betrayed. 

“You can’t go back now,” said Bradley smiling, 
“and I’m glad of it. I’m not such a ruffian, Molly, 
that you need be afraid or ashamed to shake hands with 
me,” said he rather ruefully. “Good-night. And — 
and tell Bab — tell Bab — ” His face was for a few 
moments convulsed with strong emotion. Then he 
nodded abruptly, said hoarsely, “Never mind,” and 
turned quickly away. 

Molly went back home with her heart very full. It 
was difficult to consider Bradley such a villain, now 
that she had seen him, and heard his rough, incohe- 
rent defence, the gaps in which she filled up pretty 
shrewdly, for Bradley’s was a simple nature, pre- 
senting no great psychological difficulties. 

She found Molly and Try phena together in the hall, 
waiting in the dark for her to come. Tryphena had 
been let into Bab’s mournful little secret, and the two 
were shedding furtive tears over their own and each 


270 


OUR WIDOW. 


other’s misfortune. It was Tryphena who opened the 
door to Molly, and the latter was so much taken by 
surprise on coming thus face to face with her younger 
sister that involuntarily she exclaimed : “ Oh, Phena!” 
in a tone which awakened curiosity. 

“ Why, what is it?” 

“I’ve heard something so dreadful! Something 
that will shock you so much!” 

Tryphena set her face stubbornly. 

“Out with it!” said she with more than her usual 
brusquerie. 

There was no other way out of the difficulty, so 
Molly obeyed. 

“Mr. Brown — ” Tryphena drew a deep breath — 
“is — a detective. He is set by papa’s client, Lord 
Cloone, to watch Mrs. Weir. And he is coming over 
himself to the Metropole next week.” 

Tryphena at first received this intelligence in solemn 
silence. Then she said in a perfectly steady voice : 

“ Then I shall go and see him, when he comes, and 
tell him what I think of him.” 

Her sisters came close up to her, rebuking, pro- 
testing, dissuading. She must not dare to offend 
papa’s principal client; Lord Cloone had the reputa- 
tion of being “an old crank;” everything they could 
think of they urged upon the girl in vain. 

She listened to all they had to say with her mouth 
firmly closed, and then, without any sort of answer, 
left them abruptly, and retired for the night to her 
own room. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


It was in a state of feverish anxiety that Molly ran 
downstairs on the following morning, to wait for the 
postman at the garden gate. Out of the bundle of 
letters that she took, with trembling fingers from his 
hand, there was one for herself; it was from Sir 
Walter Hay. 

There was no letter for Bab : no letter from Sam 
for any one. 

Molly opened Sir Walter’s note mechanically, 
hardly knowing whether the receipt of it gave her 
most pain or pleasure. The contents of it she knew 
before she had read a line. It was the same letter 
which, in slightly different words, she had been re- 
ceiving from her elderly lover every day for the past 
fortnight, upbraiding her for her silence, piteously ap- 
pealing to her to end his suspense, and to come away 
with him. This time he went even further. He had 
got the license for their marriage, he said, and her 
neglect was making him ill. He was staying at the 
Ship Hotel, Halliford, where she was to write, if she 
wished to hear ever again from her “ ever devoted, but 
most unhappy Walter.” 

Molly read the note through in a tumult of agitated 
feelings. Then she ran indoors, threw down the family 
letters on the hall table, and wrote a hasty note to Sir 
Walter, a note in which that experienced gentleman 
271 


272 


OUR WIDOW. 


would be able to detect every feeling of which he 
wished to take advantage. But as soon as she had 
written it she tore it up, and put on her hat and went 
off to the telegraph office in the village, where she 
sent off the following message : 

“ Very miserable. Papa turns us out. Should like 
to see you.” 

She said nothing to Bab about this, until the answer 
came within an hour. It was as follows : 

“Will meet you at Shepperton station first train 
you can come by.” 

This telegram, not without qualms, she showed to 
Bab as she came downstairs, ready to start. Bab 
turned very white. 

“ You won’t go, Molly, will you? If you do, you — • 
^ you will never come back!” 

Molly shivered, she did not know why. 

“Well, one may as well get it over quickly, when 
one has made up one’s mind,” she answered quietly. 

“ But mayn’t I go with you? I don’t want you to 
be married like that, without even a br-r-ridesmaid!” 
whispered Bab. 

Molly shook her head. 

“He wouldn’t like it, I’m sure,” whispered she. 
“You see, he knows you didn’t want me to marry 
him. Of course you’ll make it up with him after- 
ward, but it’s better, better to — to get it over first!” 

She kissed her sister quickly, and tried to pass her. 
But Bab clung to her sleeve. 

“ Molly, you’ll make him marry you in a church, 


OUR WIDOW. 


273 


won’t you? None of your registry offices, so that 
you wouldn’t feel as if you’d been properly married 
at all!” 

“Oh, no. It will be in a church,” answered poor 
Molly confidently. “ I told him that. No doubt he’s 
made all arrangements. You see, he’s been expect- 
ing, hoping for this for ever so long.” 

Bab let her get a few steps farther after this. Then 
she said : 

“Molly, do you think you will be happy?” 

Molly turned deadly white. 

“I — I don’t know,” she said in a dull, stubborn 
tone: “It’s too late to think about that, anyhow!” 

“0 Molly, Molly, I wish it were Sam!” cried 
Bab in her ears as Molly, wrenching herself away, 
ran down the road toward the station without another 
word. 

She never forgot that journey to Shepperton, short 
as it was. She seemed to be in a dream, living 
through a long series of old sensations, past scenes, 
with one strange thought underlying all: she was 
going to be married ; to cut herself off from the old 
life, the old friends, forever — forever — forever! She 
repeated these words in a dull brain, was still repeat- 
ing them when the train stopped, and she saw Sir 
Walter Hay on the platform. 

It frightened her to find that she looked at him with 
changed eyes. For the first time she noticed that 
what Bab said was true : his hair and mustache were 
dyed. The next moment she tried to forget it, almost 
did forget it, indeed, in the excitement of his wel- 
come. 


18 


274 


OUR WIDOW. 


He was fond of her, glad to see her ; there was no 
doubt of that. The pretty prize which had for some 
days threatened to escape him altogether had fallen 
into his hands at last. Molly was paler than usual, 
but this only seemed to make her fresh young face 
more interesting. Her white lawn frock was trimmed 
with lace and fine embroidery, the only touch of color 
being in her hat, which was a wide one of pale pink 
batiste, trimmed with a mass of black cherries with 
their leaves. It had been a fancy of hers that, shorn 
of all state as her wedding would be, she would wear 
the bridal white. 

Sir Walter drew her hand through his arm, and led 
her from the station toward the river. 

“ Is that the church?” said she, in a fluttering 
whisper, as she caught sight of the picturesque build- 
ing close to the water. 

Sir Walter smiled. 

“Not our church, darling,” said he. “I am going 
to take you a little further up the river, while we talk 
over the arrangements I have made.” 

Molly said nothing. She could not understand how 
it was that now, when her final resolution to be Sir 
Walter’s wife was taken, his society seemed to have 
lost all its charm for her. When they reached the 
bank, where a boat was waiting, with a man in charge 
of it, Sir Walter left her for a moment, while he went 
forward to give some directions to the man. She oc- 
cupied herself in trying to find a reason for this change 
in herself or in her lover. But she could not discover 
any. None the less certain was it that he had lost his 
attraction in her eyes ; that the expression of his face 


OUR WIDOW ; 


275 


no longer pleased her, the touch of his hand no longer 
thrilled her as it used to do. 

When she found that he had arranged with the man 
to tow the boat up the river, so that, as he said, he 
could sit by her and talk, she found herself wishing 
that he had chosen to row himself and to leave her 
alone. However, she could not say so, and she took 
her seat submissively on the cushions, and tried to 
smile when her lover placed himself beside her. 

Although she was expecting him to fulfil his promise 
to tell her of the arrangements he had made for their 
marriage, she was rather relieved to find that he put 
off his explanation, and talked instead of the misery 
he had suffered in her absence. 

Yet still his agonies, his protestations left her cold. 
And she began to wonder whether he perceived this. 

But Sir Walter was too much accustomed to regard 
her as one of his easy victims to have much discern- 
ment of the moods of the young girl. So that she 
listened, so that he could sit near enough to gloat over 
her fresh beauty, he was satisfied. And even when 
she grew surprised at the length of this up-river jour- 
ney, and restless with curiosity as to its end, Sir 
Walter still prosed tranquilly on, anxious only to keep 
her quiet. 

A little way above Bell Weir Lock the boat was 
brought to a standstill for luncheon. Sir Walter 
brought out a picnic basket, and spread out a meal 
which Molly would have enjoyed greatly at any other 
time. As it was, she was getting sick with uneasy sur- 
prise, with suspense, with a dozen feelings she could 
not analyze. She ate nothing, she drank nothing. 


276 


OUR WIDOW. 


There was creeping over her a strange longing to 
get away, to be back with Bab and Tryphena at the 
Cottage, to hear even the sound of Miss Roscoe’s 
voice. But she was overpowered by terror, by shy- 
ness. So she sat saying nothing, listening to the 
casual remarks of Sir Walter, who was making an ex- 
cellent luncheon, and looking with wide, dull eyes at 
the flowing water of the river. 

“ What time is it?” she asked at last, abruptly, in- 
terrupting a speech of Sir Walter’s. 

He took out his watch, and showed it to her. 

“ Four o’clock!” she exclaimed. “But ” 

She stopped and blushed. It was too late to be 
married that day. Again puzzled, she was again rather 
relieved. Her lover took her hand and pressed it 
tenderly to his lips. He guessed her thought. 

“I was afraid,” said he gently, “that you would 
think it too sudden, too abrupt, if I asked you to 
marry me to-day ” 

Molly interrupted him with unexpected vivacity. 

“Oh, yes. So it would have been. Yes, yes.” 

“I thought,” went on Sir Walter, more tender- 
ly still, “ that to-day we would spend in a picnic, a 
delicious dream of lazy happiness together, and that, 
as we went along, we would discuss, and make plans, 
and- ” 

“ And take me back to Teddington to-night, ” chimed 
in Molly eagerly. “ Oh, yes, that will be much better, 
much better !” 

At this thought the child recovered her spirits, and 
after that he found no difficulty in persuading her to 
go on up the river, still in the same unenterprising 


OUR WIDOW. 


277 


way (so unlike “the boys,” thought Molly) at the end 
of a tow-line, until they reached Windsor, where they 
got out and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Long 
Walk. 

It was seven o’clock when Sir Walter, beginning at 
last to perceive that he was not making the headway 
he expected, took her to a hotel to dine. 

They had a private room, and Sir Walter, who had 
ordered champagne, and who partook of it freely, 
became more demonstrative in his caresses, bolder of 
speech and of look. By the time dinner had come to 
an end, Molly, who had eaten and drunk nothing, was 
growing faint and sick, not with hunger, but with 
bitter disgust and disappointment. 

Still she was silent, gentle, only showing her feel- 
ing by increased reserve and shyness, for a long time. 
But when the dessert had been placed upon the table, 
and the waiter left the room for good, she suddenly 
sprang up, as Sir Walter’s arm was tightening round 
her waist, and ran across the room to the window. 

“ It is too hot in here, ” she said. “ Find me a time- 
table, and I will see what train I can go home by.” 

“ There is no train by which you can go back to- 
night,” said Sir Walter, quietly. “But you can stay 
here for the night, and, if you like, go back by the 
first train to-morrow morning.” 

Molly did not move, did not cry out. She was 
thunderstruck, appalled ! She understood now for the 
first time what manner of man this was to whom she 
had been ready to trust herself, she saw that he con- 
sidered her fairly in his power. 

And was she not? Was she not? What would 


278 


OUR WIDOW. 


her father say, when he learned with whom she had 
gone up the river? Who it was that had persuaded her 
to spend the night away from home? She remained 
staring out at the throng in the street below as if in 
a nightmare. 

Suddenly in the crowd she caught sight of a figure 
she knew. She started up with a cry, almost a shriek. 
The man looked up — saw her : it was Sam. 

He stopped for one moment, caught sight of Molly, 
and then his gaze passed to the face of the man behind 
her. 

And he frowned, and passed on up the street. 

Molly sank back in her chair, white, trembling, 
overwhelmed. 

Sam had abandoned her. She was lost then, lost! 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


How Molly was just the girl of whom her friends 
would have said that “ she knew how to take care of 
herself/’ just the girl who would have been pro- 
nounced full of courage, and spirit, and energy. And 
yet, at this crisis in her fortunes, she sank down like 
the most spiritless of her fellow-women, and gave her- 
self up for lost without a ray of hope or a word of 
protest. 

For in truth the courage of a young girl is a curious 
thing, not to be depended on implicitly, and hanging 
often on threads of chance and of impulse. 

Many circumstances worked together to make the 
girl’s position a hideously difficult one. In the first 
place there was the fact that the person whose conduct 
was the cause of her alarm was the man from whom 
of all others she had expected life-long kindness and 
protection, the man whom she had accepted as her 
future husband, the man who had been writing to her 
daily with protestations of undying love. 

It was an utter impossibility to the girl to realize 
fully the change which had taken place in the attitude 
of this man to herself, any more than she had real- 
ized the meaning and reason of the change in her own 
feelings toward him. 

She chose rather to take the whole fault upon her- 
self, and to conclude, though in a dim and vague 
279 


280 


OUR WIDOW. 


way, that it was the change in herself, the mysterious 
incomprehensible change, which had brought about 
this painful result. And this feeling paralyzed her. 
Her mind, working in a body faint and weak from 
want of food, refused to act in any definite way, but 
brought fantastic thoughts of her father, of Miss Bos- 
coe, of Mrs. Weir, instead of offering any solution of 
the difficulties which beset her. 

When she had called out to Sam, and he had turned 
away and walked on, she sat for some minutes with 
her hands in her lap, staring before her, and taking 
no notice of her companion, who, on his side, was at 
first annoyed, and then amused, by her vain attempt 
to escape from his clutches. 

“Who was that you called out to?” asked he. 
“That insufferable cad, Sam Bitchie?” 

It was the first time he had dared to express some 
of the detestation he felt for that once dangerous 
rival. 

Molly had spirit enough left to protest in her old 
rough way at this injustice to her friend. 

“He’s not a cad,” said she warmly. “He’s the 
best man in all the world.” 

“ A little too good for the rest of the world, dear- 
est,” said Sir Walter, coming over to where she sat, 
and making one more attempt to kiss her. “Too 
good, at least, to appreciate as she deserves a wicked 
little darling like mine!” 

Molly watched him in terror. She had wholly lost, 
in a most unaccountable way, or so it seemed to her, 
the feeling of romantic and unreasoning affection which 
she had entertained for this man. But the habit, as 


OUR WIDOW. 


281 


usual, was for a time stronger than the new feeling 
which had taken the place of the old. When he came 
near her, with the old look of bold admiration in his 
eyes, the old smile of confident pleasure on his face, 
she felt rather a dread of the kiss she was to receive 
than any impulse of opposition to his wish to kiss 
her. 

But at the very moment when his hand had reached 
her shoulder, when she had instinctively shrunk back 
further into her corner, a sudden change came into 
her face, lighting it up, and making her blue eyes 
flash and sparkle with sudden joy. 

Springing from her seat with so much life, so much 
vivacity, that Sir Walter staggered and fell back three 
or four steps, she darted across the room like a deer, 
and flung herself, with a low cry of unspeakable joy, 
into the very arms of a person who had quietly en- 
tered the room the moment before. 

“Oh, Sam, Sam, Fm all right now!” broke from 
Molly’s lips in a voice so low and broken that it could 
scarcely be heard. “ Take me back ! Take me back 
home!” 

Sam was, however, very quiet, very undemonstra- 
tive. One might have thought that he did not hear 
her appeal, so wooden was his manner, so common- 
place the tone in which he spoke. 

“I beg your pardon,” said he. “I thought you 
called to me, as I was passing.” 

“ So I did, — why, so I did ! Sam ! I want you to 
find some way of getting me home to-night.” 

For one moment Sam said nothing. He looked 
from one to the other with an expression which had 


282 


OUR WIDOW. 


changed in a second to one of unutterable terror. But 
he spoke with as much composure as ever : 

“There’s the train. Why can’t you go back by 
train?” 

Molly, who had been clinging to his arm, suddenly 
drew back, and turned sharply to Sir Walter. Her 
face had become very pale. 

“ You told me,” said she in a very low voice, “that 
there was no train!” 

“ I must have made a mistake, I suppose, ” said Sir 
Walter, who was lighting a cigar with an affectation 
of extreme indifference to what was passing at the 
other end of the room. 

That it was only an affectation, however, was made 
manifest by the trembling of his hands. 

Molly, meanwhile, had snatched up her gloves and 
her sunshade from the table by the window, readjusted 
her hat, which she had not taken off, by a touch to 
the right and left, and then, half -turning to Sir Wal- 
ter, held out her hand to him, as if it been a mere 
question a of an ordinary leave-taking. 

“Good-by,” said she in a tremulous and shy tone. 
“ I must try to catch this train. ” 

No particular train had been mentioned, but she 
forgot that. Sir Walter, however, did not. He 
threw the match he had used into the fireplace, and 
said very coolly : 

“What train is it we have to catch? Must we 
hurry? I haven’t paid the bill yet, you know.” 

In an instant there appeared on Molly’s face such a 
look of unconquerable aversion, as he sauntered across 
the room toward her, and addressed her only, ignor- 


OUR WIDOW. 


283 


ing Sam, that Sir Walter might now see that his last 
chance was gone. He was not, however, the man to 
take a defeat of this sort with good grace. 

“ You are not going to throw me over, Molly, now, 
are you? And let some one else take you home, after 
the jolly day we ? ve had had together?” 

Something in his tone, rather than the words he 
used, made Sam shiver with the desire to kick him. 
He controlled this impulse, however, and remained 
quite still, quite silent, as if indeed he had been the 
statue Sir Walter affected to suppose he was. Molly, 
who stood between the two men, grew first red and 
then white, and her breath came fast. 

“You know,” pursued Sir Walter, with a sudden 
most touching change to a tone of tender reproach, 
“that you have promised to be my wife.” 

Molly looked up, and drew a deep breath. All 
that she had dreamed, all that she had imagined con- 
cerning that hero of romance who was a hero no more, 
flashed rapidly through her mind. Had she made 
some great, some ghastly mistake, and was it she who 
was to blame after all? In the few seconds which 
elapsed while she stood silent, a whole world of 
thoughts and emotions convulsed the girl. 

But the storm died down as quickly as it had 
arisen, and left her with one clear, distinct idea. She 
gave Sir Walter one shy, frightened glance, and low- 
ered her eyelids. 

“ I want you, if you please, to let me off my prom- 
ise,” said she in a low voice. 

“In favor of — this gentleman, I suppose?” said 
Sir Walter, with quiet insolence. 


284 


OUR WIDOW . 


“In favor of nobody,” answered Molly, quickly. 
“I — I don’t want to be married at all.” 

“I may be allowed to remark,” said Sir Walter in 
the same extremely quiet manner, “ that this decision 
is very sudden. You met me this morning with the 
intention of becoming my wife at the earliest possible 
moment. ” 

Again Sam found it hard to keep still, but again he 
succeeded. Molly’s fair face, in the light of the 
candles on the table, was a study of maidenly shame. 
She glanced up at Sam, and when she saw the keen 
disappointment and annoyance on his face, she burst 
into tears. 

“I did, I did. It is quite true,” she sobbed. “I 
came ready to marry you, and I have changed my 
mind. I am very sorry, but I cannot help it. I 
wouldn’t marry you now if there were no choice but 
to be your wife, or to jump into the river!” 

Then Sam turned round and faced Sir Walter. 

“You have had your answer now,” said he, gruffly. 
“And now I will take her home.” 

“ By all means, ” said Sir Walter, mockingly. “ And 
I hope, Mr. Ritchie, you will enjoy the journey back 
with the lady, as much as I enjoyed the journey up.” 

Sam uttered a short sound like a snort, and his 
fist clenched. Then he turned his back on Sir Walter. 

“Come, Molly,” said he in a matter-of-fact tone. 

And they left the room together quietly, Molly giv- 
ing one more shy glance at her broken idol who had, 
however, walked to the other end of the room as if 
the loss of his fiancee were a matter of the smallest 
possible concern to him. 


OUR WIDOW. 


285 


When they had got into the busy street, Molly and 
Sam walked so quickly, on the initiative of the latter, 
that there was no opportunity for talking. Molly 
was thankful for this, having been seized with a feel- 
ing of strange shyness and shame when she found her- 
self alone with her rescuer. The first feeling of com- 
fort and joy which she had had on his entrance into 
the hotel sitting-room had given place to an uneasi- 
ness which increased every minute, so that by the 
time they reached the station she felt that she would 
gladly have exchanged him for any other companion, 
even for Sir Walter himself. 

When they got to the station, Sam broke the silence 
for the first time. Looking at his watch, he said quite 
calmly : 

“Let me see. The train doesn't go till ten thirty- 
eight. It is now not quite half -past nine. Would 
you mind if I left you here a little while? I have 
some business in the town. I shall be back before the 
train starts, I think : but if not, you know what you 
have to do. You get out at Kichmond, and if there 
isn't a train on to Teddington, you can get a cab." 

Molly did not answer at once. Sam was so horribly 
changed that she did not quite know how to speak to 
him. As for replying in the old familiar way, that 
was out of the question : it would have seemed like 
taking a liberty. And the knowledge gave her a pang 
much keener than any she had suffered in the society 
of Sir Walter. She was being made to feel already, 
and at the hands of the man who was always her 
apologist, her defender, in the old days, that she had 
disgraced herself, perhaps irretrievably. At last, 


286 


OUR WIDOW. 


when Sam had made a movement of impatience, she 
said in an unsteady voice : 

“ I don’t think I have money enough for my ticket.” 
Then correcting herself quickly, she added: “Oh, 
yes, I have. I can go second-class.” 

“ You need not do that,” said Sam, “I will be back 
in time.” 

And he was out of the station before she could say 
another word. 

. Molly walked up and down the platform in agony of 
heart and mind. What had she done to deserve this 
cruelty at the hands of Sam, who had always, in the 
old days, been ready to forgive anything? What did 
he think of her, that he was so bitterly hard and cold? 
She felt that she could not wait for his return, could 
not travel all the way back to Teddington, or even to 
Kichmond, in the presence of the outer form only of 
the friend of whom she had been so fond. 

Why was he so changed? It was not only that his 
tender kindness, his devotion to herself had vanished ; 
but the warm-hearted kindly manner which he had 
shown to everybody, which had made him such a gen- 
eral favorite, was now a thing of the past. He was 
now a quiet, well-bred, formal person, with the auto- 
matic speech and manner of a counting-house clerk. 

And then Molly stopped in her walk, puzzled, 
doubting, wondering again whether these miraculous 
changes in her friends were not the result of her own 
wild imagination, and whether she did not deserve 
this treatment for her own stupidity in misunderstand- 
ing the man whose wife she had promised to become. 
Had she done Sir Walter wrong after all? Was it 


OUR WIDOW. 


287 


indeed she who was fickle, and not he who was un- 
reasonable? 

She had come to the point of thinking she would 
go back home by herself, making some excuse to Sam, 
rather than bear his society now that he was so 
changed, when he himself dashed suddenly on to the 
platform, breathing hard, and looking excited and 
disordered. 

“ Is the train in?” he asked, gasping. 

Molly looked at him in amazement. 

“Why, no,” she answered. “It won’t be in for 
nearly twenty minutes!” 

She would have asked him, in the old days, where 
he had been, and what he had been doing with him- 
self. Now she did not dare. She looked at him 
askance, until she suddenly perceived, as he was turn- 
ing away from her, that his shirt-front was crumpled, 
and that there was a stain on it. She drew a sharp 
breath. 

“What’s that?” said she, in a low voice. 

Sam frowned, and looked annoyed. 

“Nothing,” said he, shortly, as he fastened his coat 
to hide the stain. 

But she had in the mean time looked more closely, 
and she was sure that the stain she now saw on his 
right-hand cuff was blood. Her tone was more as- 
sured, more imperious as she spoke again. 

“Unless you tell me what has happened, Sam,” 
said she, “I shall go back to the hotel.” 

Then she saw on Sam’s honest face a look of stub- 
born, bull-dog ferocity which she had never seen there 
before. 


288 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Go, if you like,” said he, abruptly. “And tell 
your precious friend that if he wants his head punched 
a second time I’m quite ready!” 

Molly stood looking at him in speechless astonish- 
ment. That the mild Sam of the old days, the formal 
Sam of the new, should punch the head of a man who 
boasted of his skill in boxing, as Sir Walter did ! This 
seemed to Molly a quite inexplicable phenomenon. 
She spoke quite faintly : 

“ You — punched — his head?” 

“ Yes.” 

Her admiration, her awe, increased each moment. 
An outbreak into the mere savage animal, especially 
if it be on her account, always delights a woman. 

“Why, Sam, you’re a hero!” 

“Indeed I’m not. But I hope I’m a man!” 

But this always means the same thing to a girl of 
nineteen : and Molly was worshipfully silent, feeling 
her grief and resentment gone. However sullen, how- 
ever stiff Sam might now choose to be, she could bear 
it contentedly, even joyfully. For was he not her 
champion? Had he not used his fists on her behalf, 
and put her right in her own eyes after her bitter 
humiliation? 

With a sigh of relief — for, after all, he must think 
her worth fighting for to have done this — Molly turned 
thoughts of compassion to Sir Walter. 

“I — I hope you didn’t hurt him much?” hazarded 
she in a humble tone. 

“I hope I did!” retorted Sam. 

Then there was silence. 

“But — it was my fault!” whimpered Molly at last. 


OUR WIDOW . 


289 


“Men are always having to suffer for the faults of 
women,” replied Sam abruptly. 

After which snub Molly was constrained to relapse 
into a silence which Sam did not attempt to break 
until the train steamed into the station. 

Molly had found herself hoping, for the last ten 
minutes, that they would have a compartment to 
themselves. Surely, if they had to travel together 
all the way to Richmond, thoughts of the many times 
they had taken such journeys before would move Sam 
to speak to her more kindly ! The little creature found 
herself craving for one of the old kind looks, the old 
kind words, from him. 

But Sam deliberately picked out a carriage in which 
there were only two vacant seats, and as these were 
at opposite ends, they did not exchange a word during 
the journey. 

At Richmond Sam did not even ask whether there 
was a train to Teddington. He put Molly into a cab, 
paid the driver, and shook hands with her coldly 
through the window, as if she had been a casual ac- 
quaintance, “except,” as Molly expressed it afterward 
to Bab, “that then he would have been more civil!” 

Poor Molly was absolutely crushed by this treat- 
ment. She did not dare to ask a question, to offer 
any more thanks. Bewildered and ashamed, she put 
out her hand meekly, and said “ Good-by” in a sub- 
dued voice. 

“I don’t know what papa will say,” she murmured 
in a tearful voice. “ He keeps a watch on us now !” 

“Oh, you will have some story for him, I’ve no 
doubt,” said Sam, not in the old tone of gentle remon- 
19 


290 


OUR WIDOW . 


strance, but with something like contempt in his tone. 
“ You girls will never learn to be honest and straight- 
forward!” 

Molly sat back, saying nothing. Sam raised his 
hat, and the cab drove on. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


It was nearly midnight when the cab drove up to 
the garden gate of The Cottage. Molly got out, and 
walked up the path with feet which almost tottered. 
She was faint with hunger, sick with shame and dis- 
appointment, almost benumbed with fright. 

For as she reached the door of the house, the window 
above her, which was her father’s, opened slowly, and 
Mr. Frewen’s voice called out: 

“ Who’s that?” 

“ It is I, Molly, papa, ” quavered out the girl after a 
pause, during which she had in vain tried to moisten 
her mouth, and to get back her ordinary voice. 

The window closed with a snap, and Molly, after a 
second’s pause, knocked at the door, and rang the 
bell. It was a feeble, uncertain sort of knock, but 
the pull she gave to the bell sent it clanging and 
echoing through the silent house. 

In a very few moments, Bab, in her dressing-gown, 
with a white and frightened face, opened the door. 

“You — Molly — oh!” she stammered aghast. “At 
least — I thought something must have gone wrong, 
and it must be you. But why did you ring so loudly? 
You have woke papa!” 

“I know,” said Molly, recklessly. “Let me in, 
Bab.” 

She pushed past her sister, who was shutting the 
291 


292 


OUR WIDOW . 


door noiselessly, when Mr. Frewen was heard coming 
down the stairs with a hurried, heavy tread. 

“ What do you mean, ” he cried in a loud and angry 
voice, long before he had reached the bottom of the 
stairs — “ what do you mean by coming home at this 
time of night? W T hat have you got to say in expla- 
nation? No, no. Don’t prompt her,” he cried, catch- 
ing the sound of a faint whisper from Bab. “ Let her 
tell her own tale. The one is just as good as the 
other, no doubt.” 

He had brought the matches with him, and he now 
proceeded to light the hall-lamp. Molly stood quite 
still in the full light of it, blinking, and shading her 
eyes. Bab tried to steal an arm round her, but Mr. 
Frewen waved her back. 

“ Leave her alone, leave her alone!” said he harsh- 
ly. “ Let her stand up for herself. Now, what have 
you got to say?” 

Molly drew herself up, and looked steadily at her 
father. 

“I will tell you,” she said. 

“ And never mind about dovetailing it, or making 
it appear probable,” snapped he testily. “ I can do 
that for myself. Go on.” 

For a moment, as she looked at the hard face, her 
courage failed, and the first sound that came from her 
lips was a sob. Mr. Frewen moved impatiently. 

“ Get the weeping done first, or leave it till after- 
ward,” said he. “ It interrupts the story.” 

“All right,” said Molly, in a sudden loud voice. 
And flinging her hands behind her, and joining them, 
like a child repeating a hardly learned lesson, she 


OUR WIDOW. 


293 


went on steadily: “I left home this morning to be 
married!” 

In spite of himself, Mr. Frewen started. 

“ To be married!” echoed he. 

“ Yes. I told you the other day I was going to be 
married, and so I thought I was. You didn’t ask to 
whom, and I didn’t tell you. It was to Sir Walter 
Hay!” 

She paused, expecting some terrible explosion of 
wrath. But there was none. Perhaps the communi- 
cation opened Mr. Frewen’ s eyes a little as to his own 
sins of omission as a father, since it was through his 
neglect of his daughters that such an acquaintance had 
been possible. 

There was a pause. Then he said, coolly and de- 
liberately, without any apparent emotion : 

“ Goon.” 

The poor child, however, found it difficult to 
obey. Twice she began to speak, and broke down. 
Bab, drawing nearer, put out a kind little hand to 
her. 

“ Get away, get away from her, ” said Mr. Frewen, 
snappishly. “Let her tell her own story. It is a 
much more interesting one than any you could 
make.” 

Molly lifted her head and went on quickly : 

“ But he didn’t marry me; he didn’t want to marry 
me.” 

“Of course not,” put in her father dryly. 

“So I came back,” said Molly, not looking at her 
father, but keeping her eyes fixed steadily on the 
wall. “ Sam Bitchie brought me ” 


294 


OUR WIDOW . 


“ Oh! And is Sam Ritchie going to marry you?” 

A sob choked Molly. Then she said, in a low 
voice, full of shame : 

“No. Of course not.” 

Another pause. 

“ Is that all?” asked her father. 

“Yes. That’s all. Good-night, papa.” 

She was moving toward the staircase, passing her 
father. 

“Stay,” said he. “Don’t you think I have some- 
thing to say to you after hearing all this?” 

But Molly had heard and suffered enough. The 
knowledge that now, for once, she had told the whole 
truth, and had nothing to conceal, made her reckless, 
bold. She went on up the stairs. % 

“I’ll hear it to-morrow, papa,” said she, wearily. 
“I can’t listen now. I — I — I’m tired!” 

Her voice broke, and she went up slowly and in 
silence the few remaining stairs. Mr. Frewen let her 
go, and retired to his own room, grumbling to himself, 
and snapping at Bab, who was overwhelmed by the 
thoroughness of her sister’s confession, as well as by 
the blow which had fallen on poor Molly. 

She knocked softly at her sister’s door, but there 
was no answer. She tried to turn the handle, but it 
was locked. Miserable and alarmed, Bab called to 
Molly, but got no reply. Afraid of waking up the 
household, or of exciting her father’s anger once more, 
Bab did not dare to make much noise; but she wrapped 
her dressing-gown more tightly round her, and curled 
herself up on the mat of the door opposite to Molly’s, 
in the hope that Molly, who never slept with her door 


OUR WIDOW. 


295 


locked, would turn the key when she thought every- 
body else was in bed. 

It seemed a long time before the wished-for sound 
came to Bab’s listening ears. But at last, as she had 
hoped, the key was softly turned in the lock, and 
Molly, opening the door very slowly, crept out. 

There was no light at all in the corridor, but Bab 
heard a sound, like a smothered sob, escape from her 
sister from time to time as she hurried along on tiptoe 
toward the staircase. Bab followed, sick with fright. 
Such a sorrow, such a humiliation, as had fallen on 
her to-day bright Molly had never known ; and Bab 
trembled for its effects on the wayward girl. Nothing 
but despair would have made her speak out as she 
had done to her father; nothing but despair would 
have made her shut the door in the face of her old 
confidante and sympathizer, Bab. 

So thought the younger sister, following Molly 
with ever-increasing dread. Sir Walter’s conduct had 
broken her heart, and what the result might be Bab 
dreaded to think. 

She did not yet dare to speak to Molly, but she 
kept her in sight, just making out the outline of her 
sister’s form creeping noislessly down the stairs, and 
across the hall toward the back of the house. Bab 
turned cold and sick. 

Was she going to the river? 

Still following, Bab saw the door at the back of the 
hall open and Molly go quickly through. Bab went 
after her. The latch of the kitchen door went softly 
up, and Molly went through into the dairy beyond. 
Bab wondered whether she should speak to her before 


296 


OUR WIDOW. 


she got outside; or whether she should wait, and 
throw her arms round her poor sister when the latter 
had got on the lawn outside. 

Molly was already out of sight. Springing for- 
ward, with quicker steps, Bab went through the dairy 
after her, and making a little more noise than she 
meant to do in her haste, came suddenly upon Molly, 
with a huge carving-knife in her hand. 

Bab gave a loud scream, and Molly dropped the 
knife. 

“Oh!” cried Molly. “How you startled me!” 

“How you startled me/” panted poor Bab, who 
was crying and sobbing. “ What were you doing with 
that knife?” 

“I was only going to cut myself some ham,” ex- 
plained Molly deprecatingly. “Bab, I ? m starving! 
I’ve had nothing — to eat — since breakfast!” 

Bab burst into a roar of hysterical laughter. 

“ I — I thought you were going — going — to — to cut 
your throat!” explained she between her sobs. 

Molly didn’t laugh. She began to munch a piece 
of bread she had taken out of the bread-pan, and as 
she munched, she explained solemnly : 

“Bab,” she said in a grave whisper, “it’s awful 
enough as it is. But — I see now — it would have been 
ten times more awful if I’d married Sir Walter Hay. 
I begin to understand now, Bab, why girls want chap- 
erons! All men are not angels — or Sams!” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


The next day there came a decided lull in the tem- 
pest of emotion which had raged the night before. Bab 
made the needful explanations to Tryphena, to avoid 
the danger of Molly’s being greeted by the vivacious 
younger sister with awkward remarks. Miss Roscoe 
had evidently been coached up by Mr. Frewen, for 
she was intensely discreet, and she looked rather 
frightened. 

As for the master of the house himself, he did not 
appear at all, and Molly, who was in hourly expecta- 
tion of being called to receive his threatened lecture, 
grew more hopeful as the morning passed away, and 
still her father made no sign. 

After luncheon, however, they were all thrown 
into a flutter of excitement by the sudden and unex- 
pected arrival of Edgar, whose first question, on get- 
ting inside the house, was whether they had seen or 
heard anything of Mrs. Weir. 

Nobody had, and Tryphena burst into tears. Edgar 
patted her head, an unusual demonstration for him, 
and called her a silly girl quite gently. 

“ I’m going up to town, ” said Tryphena stubbornly, 
“ to see this Lord Cloone ” 

Edgar started. 

“What do you know about Lord Cloone?” asked 
he uneasily. 


297 


298 


OTJR WIDOW . 


“ More than yon think/’ replied she with a knowing 
look. “I know he’s to be at the Metropole next 
week ” 

“He’s there now/’ said her brother. 

“Very well then. I’m going up to see him, and to 
ask him what he meant by setting detectives to watch 
Mrs. Weir! And I’m going to make him see what 
trouble he’s brought about by his detestable spying. 
I’m sure/’ she went on, “ that it was the bother caused 
by this Lord Cloone which was at the bottom of papa’s 
illness!” 

“Sh — sh! You mustn’t talk like that!” cried Ed- 
gar sharply, but with an expression of face which 
made all three girls think that Tryphena’s random 
shot had hit the mark. “ Come in here, and speak 
like a reasoning creature; and don’t let the people at 
Bichmond and Hampton Court hear what you have to 
say.” 

Thus rebuked, Tryphena followed the rest into the 
drawing-room, where a silence fell upon the group. 

For they were all suddenly conscious that they had 
lived through a long succession of strange experiences 
since they had last met, and the girls felt that they 
had more sympathy for the brother who could fall in 
love, even if it were with an adventuress, than with 
the hard Edgar of former days, who never seemed to 
care for anything but business. 

It was Tryphena who broke the silence. She went 
suddenly down on her knees by her brother’s chair, 
and looked up searchingly into his face. 

“Edgar,” she exclaimed, “you’ve been crying! Is 
it because you can’t find Mrs. Weir?” 


OUR WIDOW. 


299 


Her sisters were aghast at her boldness. But Ed- 
gar was not offended. He smiled faintly, and said, not 
unkindly : 

“ You mustn’t ask questions, little girl. But, I’ll 
just tell you this — ” and he bent his head and spoke 
close to her ear — “I’d give my right hand to find 
her!” 

“Oh dear, oh dear, and so would I!” And Try- 
phena, finding at last a really sympathetic sharer of 
her troubles about her friend, thrust her long white 
hand into that of her brother. “ What was the last 
you heard?” 

Edgar sighed, and seemed to answer with an effort : 

“Of course, since the governor disappeared and 
came down here, I’ve been staying at a hotel. I 
begged her to stay in the house, until — on the chance 
of the governor coming back. But just now, I went 
round after luncheon to tell her something, and I found 
that she had left the house, with her trunks, telling 
Johns she should not return, and leaving only this 
note. You may see if you like.” 

But it seemed that he did not like to let the precious 
missive go out of his own hands, for he held one corner 
of it while Tryphena read these words : 

“Dear Mr. Frewen: — 

“ I have done all I can, and I need not tell you how 
sorry I am that it was so little. It is of no use for 
me to stay here any longer ; I should only be in the 
way. I am afraid my efforts to be of service to your 
sisters have not been very successful, but you must tell 
Mr. Bitchie that I did my best. But they did not trust 
me, I am afraid. Give my love, especially to dear 
little Tryphena. I love that girl. For all your own 


300 


OUR WIDOW. 


kindness and the confidence you were good enough to 
place in me I thank you deeply. I am staying with 
a lady who has been kind to me, and who has promised 
me shelter for the two days I shall still remain in 
England. 

“ Believe me yours sincerely, 

“ Laura Weir.” 

Tryphena was crying when she gave back the 
note. 

“ Why does she go away? I don’t understand, ” she 
faltered. 

“Your sisters’ mistrust is one thing,” said Edgar 
bitterly, “ and the babbling stories of that fool Brad- 
ley Ingledew — that’s another! And Lord Cloone, 
he’s the third.” 

Tryphena started up. 

“I’m going to see that man,” said she. “I believe 
he could tell us, if he choose, where she is!” 

Edgar looked doubtful, but he was in a mood to 
catch at any straw. When she had run out of the 
room to get ready to go, Bab and Molly came nearer 
to him, with some shyness. 

“It wasn’t Bradley’s fault that he told us what he 
had heard, was it?” said Bab persuasively. 

“It’s his fault that he’s a fool. He’s always doing 
foolish things,” said her brother impatiently. “Look 
at this affair of Minnie Haarlem’s, for instance.” 

Suddenly he broke off short and turned away to the 
window, as if anxious not to discuss the subject. Bab 
began to cry. 

“Well, he has suffered for his folly. I’m sure he 
is miserable about it!” sobbed she. 


OUR WIDOW. 301 

For the first time since he hacl entered the house, 
Edgar smiled. 

“No, he isn’t, ” said he. “He isn’t miserable 
about it at all. I’ve just seen him, and had a long 
talk with him ; and I never saw him in better spirits 
in my life!” 

Bab drew herself up, and hastened to dry her eyes. 

“Well,” she said, “and I’m not miserable about it 
either! It was a slight annoyance at the time, that’s 
all.” 

“ You ought to be rather glad to be out of it, a 
clever, decent-looking girl like you, Bab!” said Ed- 
gar. “ He wasn’t good enough for you!” 

“ There was never any question of that, ” answered 
Bab, haughtily. “ I never thought of marrying him.” 

“ Well, that’s all right then,” returned Edgar, jump- 
ing up from his chair as Tryphena entered the room 
with her hat on, putting on her gloves. 

“Aren’t you going to see the guv’nor?” asked 
Molly, who had remained all the time in the back- 
ground. 

He shook his head with a little uneasy frown. 

“No. I won’t disturb him,” said he shortly. 
“Molly, you seem in the dumps. What’s the matter 
with you?” 

Her sisters thought she was going to burst out cry- 
ing at this direct question ; but Molly was learning to 
be brave. She looked at the carpet and grew very 
red as she answered quietly : 

“I’m in disgrace.” 

And Edgar, whose own disappointed love had 
taught him mercy, gave a little compassionate grunt. 


303 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ We’re all in the same boat,” went on Molly, with 
eyes which were tearful, though her tone was bright. 
And now you know what it’s like yourself, you won’t 
be quite so hard, will you?” 

Edgar did not look at her, but he shook hands with 
her with a kindly squeeze, and went out. 

At the front door, Bab ran after him. 

“ Tell Bradley, if you meet him again,” said she 
haughtily, “that I don’t care either!” 

Edgar promised that he would. 

It was a very silent journey up to town. Edgar 
and Tryphena had never felt so much in sympathy 
with each other, but they had never had less to say. 
He was evidently oppressed and dispirited, and the 
girl hardly felt in the mood to comfort him. She 
wondered to herself how it was that Edgar, who was as 
particular about the conduct of his sisters as he could 
possibly be, and who was never tired of scolding them 
for their daring pranks, should allow her to take such 
a bold step as this of visiting Lord Cloone. 

When they got to Waterloo she asked him hesitat- 
ingly whether he intended coming with her as far as 
the hotel. She had expected him to answer in the 
affirmative, but to her surprise he said : 

“ I think not. Lord Cloone is eccentric, and if he 
thought I had put you up to coming, he would not 
even see you.” 

Tryphena, who felt her courage beginning to ooze 
away, wished she had stayed at home. After all, 
was it not rather a wild-goose chase, this errand on 
which she had come? Her first idea had been to up- 
braid this eccentric Lord Cloone for setting a detective 


OUR WIDOW. 


303 


to watch Mrs. Weir; and to this had since been joined 
the belief that having been instrumental in driving her 
away, Lord Cloone might know where Mrs. Weir had 
gone. But on second thoughts this seemed highly 
improbable. 

She was on the point of appealing to Edgar as to 
whether she had not better give up the idea of going 
fco the hotel at all, when she found herself being 
helped into a hansom by her brother, and heard him 
give the direction to the driver. So, finding that she 
was, as she would have expressed it, “ in for it, ” she 
plucked up her courage, and thrust out her hand to 
seize Edgar’s with a strong grip. 

“ Good-by,” said she. “Take care of yourself.” 

a Where shall I meet you afterward?” asked he. 
“ I shall want to hear how the interview goes off, you 
know?” 

Tryphena looked thoughtful. 

“Supposing,” said she, “we go and give Aunt 
Agatha a treat? We haven’t inflicted ourselves on 
her for a long time, any of us.” 

Edgar nodded and waved his hand in farewell. 

“All right,” said he. 

Tryphena thought, when she got out of the hansom 
at the hotel entrance, that the drive had not been 
quite so short. 

She dismissed the cab, and asked for Lord Cloone 
with a faltering voice. She would give no name, but 
after a few minutes she was informed that his lord- 
ship would see her, and she was taken up in the lift 
to the second floor, where she was shown into Lord 
Cloone’s sitting-room. 


304 


OUR WIDOW. 


All the speeches, the eloquent and well-worded 
speeches, with which Tryphenahad primed herself for 
the occasion, went out of her head, and left her silent 
and dismayed. 

For instead of being brought at once face to face 
with Lord Gloone, as she had expected, she found, on 
raising her eyes to those of the solitary occupant of 
the great room, that she was alone with— Mr. Brown! 

He wore a frayed old shooting-coat over a flannel 
shirt, and was looking more untidy than ever. 

Tryphena gave him a withering look. 

“I want to see Lord Cloone,” she said. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


Tryphena’s courage had all run away before she 
entered Lord Cloone’s sitting-room; but when she 
found herself face to face with the detective who had 
been set to watch Mrs. Weir, and who had taken such 
an extraordinary view of his duties as to make love in 
a way to Tryphena herself, her indignation brought 
some of her lost spirit back to her. 

“I want to see Lord Cloone,” she repeated more 
haughtily than before, glancing toward the door of 
an inner room, opening out of the sitting-room, in 
which she supposed him to be. 

“ I quite understand,” said Mr. Brown, who had 
thrown the end of the cigarette he had been smoking 
out of the window. Won’t you sit down?” 

And he offered her a chair, in a manner which sug- 
gested some shame, some contrition for his past con- 
duct, but also some share of annoyance with her, and 
constraint in her presence. 

“No, thank you,” said Tryphena coldly. 

“Well, then, what is it you have to say?” 

“Nothing — to you, Mr. Brown.” 

“Oh, but you have, I think. I am the person 
you wish to see.” 

For a moment Tryphena stared at him in absolute 
bewilderment. Then a thousand circumstances which 
had puzzled her before flashed into her mind with a 
20 305 


306 


OUR WIDOW . 


new meaning, and she turned white to the lips with 
the shock of the discovery she had made. 

“ You — are — Lord Cloone!” 

“ Yes. Now will you sit down?” 

But Tryphena took no notice of his words. She 
was clinging to the back of a chair ; she was looking 
at him with starting, wild eyes. A horrible suspi- 
cion, which had already crossed Bab’s mind, but which 
neither of her sisters had as yet entertained, took 
away her breath, her power of movement. At last 
she gasped out : 

“ You attacked my father! I saw you with my own 
eyes! You have not been watching Mrs. Weir; you 
have been watching him /” 

The blood came into Lord Cloone’s dark face. He 
was in a difficult position, face to face with this 
straightforward, frank young girl, with her searching 
eyes. He began to stammer, to deny. 

But she would have no evasions, no falsehoods. 

“ What is the use of trying to hide anything now?” 
said she, speaking openly, fearlessly enough now that 
she understood the position of affairs. “ We are wil- 
ful and foolish in many ways, we girls, but we are 
not such fools as people think. There is a horrible 
secret that we shall have to know, that I can guess 
already. You may as well tell me the worst we have 
to expect.” 

She drew herself up majestically, a goddess in 
brown holland and coffee-colored lace. The broad- 
brimmed sailor hat she wore, of burnt straw, formed 
a most becoming frame to her sunny gold-brown hair 
and her handsome, fresh young face. Lord Cloone 


OUR WIDOW. 


307 


gave a rapid glance at her, and then looked out of 
the window. The girl’s whole attitude, her voice, 
her manner, her proud, pleading eyes — were extremely 
touching : and he did not want to be touched. 

“ I would much rather not tell you. It is very un- 
pleasant to have to talk to a lady about the matter,” 
said he with elaborate coldness of manner. “ I shall 
be much obliged if you will put these questions to 
some one else.” 

“ There’s no need,” said she in a hoarse voice. 
“How can I help guessing, knowing, what it is? 
Papa was your trustee, managed your affairs while 
you were abroad. You had come back suddenly, un- 
expectedly. Papa is taken ill. You attack him ; you, 
a young man, attack an old one! You — you — you — • 
Oh, how can I help knowing that there is something 
wrong. ” 

She began to sob a little, but not loudly, while 
Lord Cloone, affecting to hum an air softly to himself, 
and to take things very coolly, paced rapidly up and 
down the long room. 

“ What are you going to do?” she asked at last, 
controlling her voice by a great effort. “ Are you — • 
are you going to put him in prison?” 

Lord Cloone stopped with an air of exasperation. 

“ I don’t know what I am going to do. And you 
have no right to ask me,” said he angrily. “This 
visit of yours puts me in a very painful position. 
But I am not going to be talked over ; certainly not. 
I have been infamously treated, I have had my con- 
fidence shamefully betrayed. I am sorry for you 
and your sisters, very sorry. Mrs. Weir took care 


308 


OUR WIDOW. 


that I should be.” Tryphena looked up, with sudden 
comprehension. “ She tried to interest me in you all, 
introduced me, worked upon my feelings in every pos- 
sible way ” 

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Tryphena, remembering that 
most perplexing introduction, by Mrs. Weir, of the 
gentleman whose name she did not seem to know ! 

“ But justice is justice, and it is not my fault that a 
man’s own misdeeds involve pain to his family. And 
I think, Miss Erewen, considering all things, you 
might have spared me this interview.” 

“But I didn’t understand,” faltered Tryphena in a 
meeker voice than before. “ I knew nothing at all of 
this dreadful story till I came. They told me Lord 
Cloone was an o-old crank, and I came to ask him 
what he meant by setting detectives to watch Mrs. 
Weir, and to see whether he knew what had become 
of her!” 

“ But somebody must have sent you, have known 
of your coming?” said Lord Cloone suspiciously. 
“Or how did you find out where I was?” 

“My brother Edgar knew,” admitted Tryphena. 

“Ah!” said Lord Cloone, “I thought so! Well, 
all he has got by this embassy is this : that I shall 
change my hotel, and if I find I am still persecuted, 
I shall go abroad. My agents can do all that is 
necessary without my presence!” 

“That means, I suppose,” said Tryphena, suddenly 
flashing out again with spirit, “ all that is necessary 
for the ruin of poor papa! Well, Lord Cloone, I 
didn’t come here to intercede for him, and I see you 
would not have heard me if I had. I apologize for 


OUR WIDOW. 


309 


my intrusion, and I hope you may get all the satis- 
faction possible out of the ruin we have, as you say, 
well deserved.” 

“ I did not say that, ” said Lord Cloone tartly. “ I 
said I was sorry you were involved in it, and so I am. 
Do you think a rogue ought to get off scot-free just 
because he has a lot of pretty daughters?” 

He could have bitten his tongue out with vexation 
the next moment for having, in the heat of his anger, 
allowed the word “ rogue,” which was always in his 
thoughts, to escape his lips. Tryphena grew suddenly 
pale, and her eyes filled with tears. 

“ That is not the way we think of papa, remember 
that!” she said, with some dignity. “And remem- 
ber, please, also, that it was not his daughters who 
brought themselves under your notice. Mrs. Weir 
made a great mistake in doing so. You need not 
trouble your head on our account, I assure you. Good- 
afternoon.” 

She made him a very dignified bow, and turned to 
leave the room. 

Lord Cloone, who was by no means so indifferent 
as she supposed, intercepted her at the door. He had 
always admired this girl, and had fought strenuously 
against the infatuation of which he found himself in 
danger. His sense of justice, and his natural longing 
for justice on the man who had betrayed his trust 
revolted from the thought of letting off old Frewen 
easily on account of his handsome daughter. 

But he now began to find his feelings of resentment 
and justice growing weak, in spite of himself, under 
the influence of the young girl's beautiful presence, 


310 


OUR WIDOW. 


of her spirit, and her ingenuousness. “ Won’t you 
at least shake hands, for the sake of the jolly day on 
the river with Mr. Brown?” said he. 

Tryphena blushed, and hesitated a moment. It 
was a strange thing to remember now the feelings 
she had had toward “Mr. Brown” in the first days 
of their acquaintance. 

“ I took Mr. Brown for a thief, and then I was told 
he was a detective,” she said at last bluntly. “I 
think, if you please, that I prefer to forget Mr. 
Brown!” 

Lord Cloone bowed in silence, and opened the door 
for her. 

“Good-afternoon,” said he coldly. 

“ Good-afternoon.” 

She flew down the staircase, and out into the air. 
Her head seemed to be spinning round. She plunged 
into the crowd of omnibuses, carts, and carriages in 
the road without a thought of where she was going; 
and it was not until she felt a hand dragging her 
violently backward that she realized that she was in 
danger of being run over. 

“ Where on earth are you going to?” said Edgar’s 
voice behind her. 

“Edgar! Oh, why didn’t you tell me who Lord 
Cloone was?” 

“Well, if I had, you wouldn’t have seen him. 
Was it any good?” 

“No, indeed. He was angrier when I came away 
than he was when I went. And oh, Edgar, I heard 
some dreadful things! About papa! Oh dear, is it 
all true?” 


OUR WIDOW . 


311 


“ Yes. It’s true enough. Smee and I have been 
afraid of a crash for more than two years now. And 
now this means ruin. Lord Cloone’s not to blame. ” 

66 Oh, Edgar !” 

“It's no use talking about it. In fact I can’t talk 
about it — to you. I’m going to take you to Aunt 
Agatha’s. She’ll have to be consulted presently, as 
to what is to be done with you girls. I’ll try and 
prepare the ground this afternoon, if the old lady’s 
in a good humor.” 

He hailed a hansom, and they drove to Wilton 
Place. Miss Melbury was at home, and in a few 
moments Edgar and Tryphena found themselves 
treading, with instinctively softer steps than they 
usually took, the slightly worn carpet of the room 
where Aunt Agatha sat in state. 

It was not Miss Melbury ’s “day,” and the little 
tete-a-tete corners were unoccupied, and the subdued 
clatter of the dainty tea-cups and the little silver 
spoons was unheard. The long rooms, never more 
than half-lighted, looked full of shadows ; the brocade 
screens stood up like gaunt ghosts among the va- 
cant chairs. The smell of faded rose-leaves seemed 
stronger than ever. 

Only in the furthest corner of the furthest room 
there was a subdued murmur of ladies’ voices. 

“ Bother!” muttered Edgar. “ She’s got some old 
woman or other with her!” 

But Tryphena, without answering her brother, ran 
forward with an eager look on her face. Edgar 
heard her joyful cry, “Oh! oh!” as she reached the 
end of the inner room before him. 


312 


OUR WIDOW. 


And when he came up, he found her in Mrs. Weir’s 
arms. 

He stood petrified with amazement. Miss Melbury, 
who was holding out her hand to him, had to call him 
by name before he recovered from the stupefaction 
into which the discovery of Mrs. Weir in his aunt’s 
house had thrown him. 

“This is a pretty business of your father’s,” she 
said to him in a low voice, offering him the chair by 
her side, when he had shaken hands with her and 
with Mrs. Weir in a constrained and formal fashion. 

He started and glanced from Mrs. Weir, who was 
talking to Tryphena, to Miss Melbury. 

“ Oh, yes, I know all about it. I have known all 
about everything from the very first, ” went on Aunt 
Agatha. “I took a fancy to Laura, and she, I think, 
to me; at any rate she confided in me from the 
outset, told me all about herself, and took my advice 
at the various points of the exciting adventures of the 
past few weeks. She is a good creature, and I am 
heartily sorry for her. And when she told me she 
was going to leave your father’s house and to go 
abroad again, I begged her to stay with me a few days 
first.” 

Mrs. Weir and Tryphena had withdrawn out of 
hearing of these two, discussing very sadly the affairs 
of the three girls. They had not the heart to mention 
the more serious matter of Mr. Frewen’s ruin. The 
one matter on which your father seems to have shown 
judgment,” said Miss Melbury, “ is in his treatment 
of this clever and good-hearted woman. It seems he 
recognized her, the moment she called upon him for 


OUR WIDOW . 


313 


the first time, as the wife of a rascal named Lowen- 
stein, who was mixed up with Sir Walter Hay and 
some others, in some very shady transactions which 
your father and Lord Cloone’s father were the means 
of showing up.” 

“ I know,” said Edgar. “And all that could be 
said against her was that she was a devoted wife to 
a bad husband.” 

“And that she helped him to escape from justice,” 
added Miss Melbury. “ That was what people could 
not forgive. And that was why I consider your 
father acted well toward her. He saw that her fault, 
if you can call it a fault, was one to be forgiven in 
a woman, and he gave her what she wanted, a re- 
spectable home in England. Used as she had been 
to a round of foreign boarding-houses, perhaps we 
can hardly appreciate what the change was to her. ” 

“She didn’t tell me that,” said Edgar, who was 
trembling as if with cold. “ To me she has been very 
reticent about herself. Is — is her husband dead? I 
have never dared to ask her.” 

“Yes. The crash and the exposure killed him. 
He died abroad within a year of his having to leave 
England.” 

“Why does she want to go abroad again now?” 

“ What else is there for her to do? She has been 
recognized, pointed at.” Edgar growled. “ She says 
even your sisters, except Tryphena, suspect and dis- 
trust her.” 

“The little fools! But their minds have been 
poisoned. And, remember, things have looked very 
fishy at home lately. Bab is clever, and must have 


314 


OUR WIDOW ; 


known something was wrong, without knowing exactly 
what it was. I see that, ” admitted Edgar. 

“ Of course. When your father heard that Lord 
Cloone had found out something, and when he shut 
himself up, pretending to be ill, in order to keep out 
of his client’s way, the girls must have seen that his 
illness was puzzling. And when he confided in Mrs. 
Weir, and got her to help him to keep up the decep- 
tion, of course she drew remarks upon herself.” 

“ You know, of course, that she saw Lord Cloone, 
and tried to interest him in the girls?” said Edgar. 
“ And that she managed to trace out and restore to 
Lord Cloone some of the family jewels of his that my 
father had the madness to lend, or give, or something, 
to some woman?” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Melbury. 

“And don’t you think,” went on Edgar, “that 
there’s just a hope, considering what a high character 
my father has borne for so long, that a jury might 
pronounce him insane?” 

Aunt Agatha looked shrewd. 

“No,” she said decidedly. “The insanity which 
‘makes a man a tyrant to his family and a slave to his 
passions is not treated in asylums.” 

Edgar groaned. 

“I’m very sorry for you, my poor boy,” she said. 
“ For you will have to bear part of the blame, though 
you have not shared the fault of your father.” 

He looked at the old lady with a face which looked 
for the moment as old as his own father’s. 

“You don’t know what it has been like,” said he. 
“ For the last two years I have lived in torment. The 


OUR WIDOW . 


315 


girls must have told you what a bear I’ve been to 
them ” 

“ They have, ” admitted Aunt Agatha smiling. 

“ But there has been good cause for it. For many 
years I’ve known my father to be a hypocrite, austere 
to the world, and — well, lax enough and to spare in 
his own life. But it was only a little while ago that 
I found he was using Lord Cloone’s money for his 
private extravagances. I consulted Smee. He could 
do little. I could do nothing. Bemonstrance was — 
well, you know my father! We could only wait, and 
hope that he would be able to make the losses good 
when the time came, or that something, anything 
would happen to avert what we knew he deserved. At 
any rate Lord Cloone seemed to have deserted 
England, and the blow was a long time in coming. 
Then he came back unexpectedly, and — well, you 
know what is the result. We are ruined. The 
question is: What is to become of the poor girls?” 

"Well, don’t worry your head about them. I shall 
have to do something for them, I suppose. I only 
hope,” went on Aunt Agatha with a sigh, “that they 
won’t make the place quite a bear-garden, if I have 
to take them in!” 

Edgar thanked her with a sinking heart. The 
vision of his wilful, energetic, perhaps somewhat 
noisy sisters, having to tone themselves down to the 
neutral tint suitable to the subdued light and the old 
brocades, the fragile furniture, and the close, rose- 
scented atmosphere, was not a reassuring one. He 
rose to go, and called Tryphena. She passed him, 
and went to Miss Melbury to say good-by. 


316 


OUR WIDOW. 


Edgar crossed the floor to where Mrs. Weir, looking 
handsomer than ever in a gown of pale yellow-green 
china crape, was looking at the miniatures in a 
curiosity table. 

She turned to him with a gentle smile. Without 
knowing the extent to which she had attracted and 
fascinated this rather curt and cold-mannered man, 
Mrs. Weir was of course not ignorant enough 
to suppose that she was altogether indifferent 
to him. Now she suddenly perceived in his dark 
eyes a look which told her more than she had ever 
guessed. 

“ You are going abroad again?” he said abruptly. 

“ Yes. What else is there for me to do?” 

There was a pause. Then he said, in a constrained 
voice, in which, however, Mrs. Weir’s ear detected 
the ring of strong but subdued passion : 

“ Nothing else. As the case stands, nothing. But, 
if these things had not happened that have happened ; 
if the firm to which I belong had stood now 
where it stood five years ago, I should not have let 
you go.” 

“ You would not!” 

“ I should not. I should have told you that there 
was a man in your own country strong enough to 
protect you, to take you up safe and high out of reach 
of the words and looks which could hurt you. I 
should have prevailed upon you, by the love I bear 
you, to be my wife. As it is, I can do nothing, say 
nothing — but — good-by. ” 

She let him take her hand. She only looked up 
for a moment. But in the momentary contact of 


OUR WIDOW. 


317 


their fingers, in the quick glance of eye to eye, he saw 
something, felt something, which gave him comfort, if 
it was a comfort full of pain. He saw that, if Mrs. 
Weir was something to him, he was not wholly in- 
different to Mrs. Weir. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


On the three days which followed Tryphena’s rash 
visit to Lord Cloone, a dull and heavy cloud of 
suspense and sorrowful anxiety seemed to hang over 
the pretty house at Teddington. 

During all that time, they saw nothing of their 
father. Mr. Erewen, on a plea of ill-health which 
they took care to satisfy themselves was unfounded, 
shut himself up from his daughters, and refused all 
the entreaties they made, by notes and verbal mes- 
sages, that he would see them. 

It seemed that he tolerated, rather than encouraged, 
Miss Roscoe’s attentions; for her allusions to him 
grew less enthusiastic as time went on. The girls 
began to feel sorry for her, and to wonder when all 
this would end, and how soon the thunderbolt would 
come which they were all expecting. 

Bab had taken the news of her father’s delinquen- 
cies very quietly. She had guessed something, though 
not indeed all of the story. 

“Do you remember, Molly,” she asked her bewil- 
dered and miserable sister, when the recital was over, 
“ one night when we walked up Regent Street with 
Sam, and when he tumbled us into a hansom very 
suddenly, just opposite the Cafe Royal?” 

Molly remembered it quite well. 

318 


OUR WIDOW. 


319 


“ And do you remember that he whisked us off the 
pavement in a great hurry, as if he had seen some- 
thing he didn’t want us to see?” 

Molly nodded. 

“Well, there were some people there, going into 
the Cafe, that he didn’t want us to see. And papa 
was one of them.” 

“I don’t see what that has to do with this business 
of Lord Cloone’s!” 

“ Only this, that we always thought him a recluse, 
but he wasn’t.” 

None of the girls said any more about it. Their 
poor little hearts were too sore. They had never been 
able to love their father with the usual open affection 
of child to parent. But they had respected him deep- 
ly ; they had feared him, they had thought of him as 
a person too good for the ordinary world ; and to find 
out the mistake they had made, and in this appalling 
manner, was a blow to their own self-respect and to all 
the traditions of their childhood. 

It was on the morning of the fourth day that Miss 
Boscoe rushed into the breakfast-room with horror on 
her face. 

“Your father! Your father! Mr. Frewen!” she 
gasped out, looking from one to the other of the girls, 
scarcely able to articulate. 

Bab, who was the most collected of the three, 
addressed her. 

“What is the matter?” she asked, white to her 
lips. 

“Matter! Why, that he’s gone away — gone I tell 
you — gone without having slept in his bed!” cried the 


320 


OUR WIDOW. 


governess, whose alarm was even greater than that 
of the girls. 

“Oh, but that’s nothing dreadful,” said Tryphena 
quickly. “That’s how he came down here, without 
notice to anybody. He’s gone back to Cirencester 
Terrace, most likely.” 

But then it came out that Miss Boscoe, who was 
holding in her hand a crushed and crumpled note, had 
taken the liberty of opening an envelope she had 
found in Mr. Frewen’s room, although it was ad- 
dressed to Molly. As she gave it up now, with 
apologies, no notice was taken of this breach of honor, 
“which,” as Molly afterward said to Bab, “was just 
what was to be expected of her!” 

The note informed his daughter that he had made 
up his mind to take a voyage for the sake of his 
health, -and that he had thought it better to go away 
quietly, without any fuss. Their brother Edgar 
would look after them, and Mr. Frewen hoped they 
would behave better in the future than they had done 
in the past, and that they would not forget that they 
owed a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Weir. 

“Hot a word about me, you see!” sobbed Miss 
Eoscoe. “Nothing but that cat! That adventuress 
who set herself up as a rival to you girls, as I’m sure 
I never did!” 

This last statement was undoubtedly true, and the 
girls said something to soothe her feelings, being 
indeed rather sorry for her. If anything, she felt 
the overthrow of her rather chilling and ungrateful 
divinity more than the girls themselves did. 

A telegram was at once sent to Edgar, who came 


OUR WIDOW. 


321 


down that afternoon. He was in the lowest possible 
spirits, and thought that Lord Cloone would take this 
action on the part of his defaulting trustee as the clew 
to begin proceedings against him. 

“ He is keeping very dark at present,” added Edgar 
gloomily. “I haven’t heard a word from him since 
the day I saw you all last. But the blow must come 
now, I should think. All you girls can do is to keep 
quiet, and to try and keep out of mischief while Smee 
and I do the best we can to settle something to keep 
you going.” 

“We ought to leave this place and take a cheaper 
one, a real cottage without any garden or drainage 
or kitchen range or anything,” said Molly with energy. 

“ And be governesses, if anybody will let us teach 
their children whjen they know!” said Tryphena lugu- 
briously. 

“ And never have any more nice frocks!” cried Bab 
with a tear on her cheek. 

In a subdued and rather childish way, with sighs 
and tears both for themselves and “ poor papa,” and 
with kind thoughts of Edgar, who had grown so gen- 
tle to them, the girls spent the next day in making 
plans for effacing themselves from the world they 
loved, and for confronting a hard battle with life 
under new and dreadful conditions. 

Miss Boscoe still remained with them, a dim and 
tearful background to the doleful picture. She found 
the girls more sympathetic than she could have hoped, 
and was quite ready, even anxious to remain with them 
as long as they would let her. 

“ But we can’t afford the luxury of a chaperon any 

21 


322 


OUR WIDOW. 


longer,” remarked Bab with a sigh when she was alone 
with her sisters on the lawn in the evening. “I can’t 
say we’ve appreciated the luxury while we had it; 
but I expect we shall get a good deal more liberty 
than we care for now.” 

And Molly and Tryphena sighed in chorus. 

Then silence fell upon the group, and before any- 
body spoke again, certain sounds from the house 
behind them attracted their attention, and looking 
round, they saw the once familiar figures of Bradley 
Ingledew and Sam, standing in the drawing-room, 
waiting to be invited to come out. 

Molly sprang up, blushed deeply, and sat down 
again. Bab, although her fingers twitched and her 
bosom heaved under her gray muslin blouse, pretended 
not to see them. The more artless Tryphena rushed 
across the lawn toward them with a cry of unfeigned 
delight. 

“ Oh, oh!” cried she ingenuously. “ This is lovely, 
to be able to have one more game at playing the old 
times before it’s all over forever!” 

She had shaken hands with both the young men, 
who were strangely shy and confused, and had de- 
tained Sam to tell him something of the family mis- 
fortunes, while Bradley was allowed to go down by 
himself toward the other girls. 

Bab affected to be overwhelmed with amazement at 
this audacious visit; but the pretence was a very 
feeble one, for in truth the sight of their old friends 
had all but caused both girls to break down. They 
shook hands with him in a constrained manner, while 
he on his side was as awkward as any schoolboy. 


OUR WIDOW . 


323 


“I will go and order some tea for you, or some 
claret-cup, or something, ” said Bab, when a very few 
words had been exchanged. 

She wanted to go away by herself and cry ; she felt 
that if she stayed she would give way before him, 
and disgrace herself forever. 

But when she had got half-way across the grass, 
skimming along the ground as swiftly as a hare, she 
found that she was pursued, and dropped immediately 
into a slow walk, lest Bradley should think she was 
running away from him. 

“We are very glad to see you again, ” said she 
coldly, without looking at him, “ as this is the last 
time we shall be at the cottage to receive our friends. ” 

“ Friends !” echoed Bradley in a husky voice. 
“You still call me your friend then? You are still 
good enough to do that!” 

“Oh well, I suppose so. I suppose it is out of 
kindness to old friends, acquaintances, whatever you 
like, that you come to say good-by to them, having 
heard of — of ” 

“ Yes, yes, I know all about it,” whispered Bradley 
gruffly. “I suppose, Bab, I suppose, if I’d been 
free, if I hadn’t had a wife, you know, you wouldn’t 
have married me, would you?” 

“Oh, no, no, of course not!” returned Bab hastily, 
with a catch in her breath. 

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” Bradley hurried on, 
“ so I shall have to find a wife somewhere else, of 
course, as I’ve found out that the lady I married had 
a husband living in America when she married me ! 
Edgar knew it 5 he had found it out himself when he 


324 


OUR WIDOW. 


himself had thoughts of marrying her. He had the 
sense to make inquiries, which I hadn’t,” added Brad- 
ley with doubtful grammar but deep interest. 

Bab had stopped short, and was looking at him 
with such an expression of beatific happiness on her 
pale face that it was quite natural of Bradley to think 
that she would be less harsh than her words had 
portended. 

Their eyes met once, and then he whispered : 

“When it’s all settled — it won’t take long, you 
know — we’ll be married here — at the new church, and 
we’ll spend our honeymoon on the river, won’t we? 
and won’t it be jolly, eh, Bab?” 

But Bab couldn’t answer: she was really crying 
now; the fact could not be gainsaid. 

“Oh, Bradley,” she whispered at last, “hasn’t this 
been a lesson — never, never to think about enjoying 
one’s self any more?” 

“I don’t know about that,” said Bradley. “I 
think we shall enjoy ourselves very much. You don’t 
know how I’ve missed you, Bab. I never thought I 
cared for you half so much. You make all the other 
women one meets seem so stodgy .” 

“I’m going to be stodgy myself now,” said Bab, 
with a sigh of resignation. 

“You can’t.” 

“I’m going to try, anyhow. I’ve been thinking 
lately, really thinking, and I’ve come to a lot of con- 
clusions. I’ve reformed myself, and now I’m going 
to reform you. Do you think you shall like being 
reformed?” 

“Awfully, by you! Do you know that I’ve known 


OUR WIDOW. 


325 


this for nearly a week? And I couldn’t come down 
and tell you before because Edgar, when he told me, 
made me promise not to come near you. He said we 
were not suited to each other; we were both too 
frivolous; and we should get over it. But when I 
heard — something ” 

“ Yes, yes, — don’t talk about it!” 

“When I heard that, I went to Edgar and told 
him he must let me off my promise. And he said 
‘All right!’ And it is all right, isn’t it?” 

They had got round the side of the house by this 
time, where the evergreens were tall and thick. And 
under the shelter of their branches, Bradley persuaded 
Bab to let him have a kiss, “just one to go on with, 
to make sure she had forgiven him!” 

In the mean time Tryphena had brought Sam down 
the garden, until they came face to face with Molly. 
She was very pale, very timid, quite unlike the merry, 
off-hand, rosy Molly of the old days. 

But Sam’s manner put her at ease, or almost at her 
ease, at once. He was quiet, and kind, and uncon- 
strained, not like the Sam who had brought her home 
from Windsor, but like the old Sam whom she had 
teased, worried, and tyrannized over. With just this 
one difference, that there was no trace of the lover in 
his manner. 

He talked about trifles, and so easily that when 
Tryphena quietly withdrew from the conversation, and 
then from the vicinity, Molly was able to go on chat- 
ting with very little effort. 

He said he had seen Edgar, and he said it in such a 
way as to show Molly that there were no unpleasant 


326 OUR WIDOW. 

explanations left for her to make. He just nodded, 
and then she nodded, and went on telling him about 
the arrangements they were going to make. 

“ We shall all have to teach or to do something, ” 
she said. “Even if the firm isn’t ruined altogether, 
as we expect, it will be a long time before Edgar and 
Mr. Smee can pull straight. And we want to do 
something. We’ve not made very good use of our 
time up to now.” And Molly blushed. “Now we 
are going to do wonders.” 

“Poor girls!” said Sam sympathetically. “At 
least, poor Tryphena and poor Molly !” She looked 
up in surprise. “ Why, yes, for Bab will be all right. 
It turns out he was not really Miss Haarlem’ s husband 
after all. She had been married in America before ; 
and her husband, her real husband, that is, is alive.” 

Molly clapped her hands with delight. 

“ Oh, I’m so glad! Then there will be one of us to 
come to a good end after all!” 

Sam laughed a little. 

“Why, I hope you all will,” said he, with perhaps 
a slight tinge of constraint in his manner. “It’s a 
good thing that poor Bab won’t have to give up her 
pretty dresses and things, isn’t it? I believe to be 
what she calls ‘dowdy’ would break her heart.” 

“I’m no so sure about that,” said Molly. “Bab 
pretends to be silly and frivolous; it suits her, and 
amuses everybody. But I believe she’s clever enough 
for a Senior Wrangler, if she chose to try! And if 
she found herself married to a man who couldn’t 
afford to give her expensive clothes, she’d manage to 
look as nice in cheap ones.” 


OUR WIDOW ; 


327 


There was a short pause. Then he said, without 
looking at her : 

“ And what are you going to do, Molly?” 

“Well, I don’t quite know yet. You see I’m not 
clever, like Bab.” 

“No. You’re not as clever as Bab, Molly, cer- 
tainly.” 

“Well, you needn’t tell me I’m stupid, even if I 
am!” retorted she, with a sudden return to her old 
manner. 

“I don’t think I did say so,” said Sam. 

Molly blushed a deep crimson, and after a pause, 
said humbly : 

“Well, even if you had said so, you’d have had a 
perfect right to, after — after the stupid things you’ve 
known me to do, the mistakes you’ve seen me make.” 

There was a very long pause. It touched Sam 
painfully to see his little tyrant so humble. Quite 
suddenly he got up. 

“Well,” he said, “I didn’t come to inflict a long 
call upon you this time ” 

“Call!” echoed Molly dismally. “You used not 
to pay us calls at all, Sam!” 

“No, I used to be a sort of permanent infliction,” 
said he. “ Always turning up whether I was wanted 
or not. I’ve learned modesty and discretion now. 
But I shall look in again, to see if there’s anything I 
can do for you. There might be something, you 
know, if, as you say you’re going to move. I can 
take down pictures and hang them up again, and do 
all sorts of things of that sort, you know.” 

“Yes, I know you can do everything, Sam.” 


328 


OUR WIDOW. 


In silence, they walked on to the house, passed 
through it with few words, and reached the front- 
door. It stood open, on account of the heat, and the 
entrance was shaded by a striped awning. 

“Well, good-by, Molly,” said Sam, as he held out 
his hand. “ You will be sure and let me know if 
there’s anything I can do, won’t you?” 

Molly did not answer. She did try to, but she 
couldn’t get the words out. She had learned a great 
many things lately, and the number of things she had 
learned about Sam, and without any particular teach- 
ing too, was enormous. And to see him go like this, 
when she had longed to see him so passionately, was 
more than she could bear. 

Her fair face twitched, the tears rolled down, and 
she suddenly turned away. 

“Goo — ood-by!” sobbed she. 

“Molly!” said he. “Molly!” 

As she went back into the hall, he pursued her, 
calling to her as he went. At the foot of the stairs 
he caught her round the waist, stooped down, looked 
into her blushing, shy face. 

“Molly! Do you care for me? Care for me — the 
way I want you to?” 

For answer she flung her arms round his neck. 

“Oh, Sam!” she sobbed, “when I thought — I 
thought I should never see you any more, I could 
have d-d-drowned myself! I’ve loved you all 
the time, ever so long, I think, Sam, only I didn’t 
know it!” 

She was very gentle, very sweet, very humble, and 
supremely happy. 


OUR WIDOW . 


329 


“You’re ever so much too good for me, you know, 
Sam,” said she presently. “ You’d much better have 
married the girl in the boat! Why didn’t you?” 

“There were one or two obstacles in the way,” 
answered he frankly. “In the first place she’s got a 
husband, my brother in fact ” 

“ Oh, what a shame ! Then it was only a trick to 
annoy me!” 

“Well, I won’t say it wasn’t. And the other 
obstacle — I suppose you can guess what the other 
obstacle was?” 

“ Me?” 

Sam nodded. 

They went into the drawing-room and sat down by 
the window, and Molly told him, bit by bit, with a 
good many blushes, a good many interruptions, the 
story of the way in which her eyes had gradually 
opened, and how she had learnt to tell where her 
heart was, and had promised to marry Sir W T alter out 
of the depth of her despair, when she thought the 
her faithful old Sam had deserted her forever. 

“Why weren’t you kinder to me, Sam, that day 
you brought me home from Windsor?” 

Sam hesitated. 

“ Well, I was angry with you, for one thing, for 
being such a little donkey. And I couldn’t have been 
kind to you without making love to you, for I wanted 
to kiss you whenever I looked at you. And how 
could I, you know, just after all that affair with that 
scoundrel?” 

“ Sam, how did you happen to be in Windsor on 
that day?” 


330 


OUR WIDOW. 


“ Bab put me up to it. I watched you come out, 
and followed you. I knew that if you met that rascal 
you would want your old pal.” 

“Oh, Sam!” 

“ But mind, you put me to a lot of trouble and ex- 
pense, and I expect you to make it up to me by the 
most perfectly submissive and respectful behavior.” 

“All right. For how long?” 

“Forever.” 

“ Oh!” 


CHAPTER XXXVI. AND LAST. 


It was two days after the reappearance at The 
Cottage of Sam and Bradley, when the parlor-maid 
brought word to Tryphena, who was just going out in 
her canoe, that a gentleman was in the drawing-room, 
who wished to see her. 

“ Who is it?” said Tryphena, with her heart beat- 
ing very fast. 

“He didn’t give his name, miss, but I think it’s 
Mr. Brown.” 

“ Tell him — ” began Tryphena, and stopped short. 

“Mr. Brown” had caught, sight of her from the 
drawing-room window, and was coming over the grass 
towards her. 

“All right, Anne,” said Tryphena. 

The maid went back to the house, and Tryphena, 
trembling from head to foot, waited with her paddle 
in her hand, until Lord Cloone came up to her. 

He was better dressed than she had ever seen him 
before, and had put on a new frock-coat and tall hat 
in honor of this ceremonious visit. 

He and Tryphena eyed each other with something 
of the air of combatants as he approached her. She 
was very cold, although, for the sake of the whole 
family, she tried to be civil. 

“ I hope I am not disturbing you, Miss Frewen?” 

331 


332 


OUR WIDOW. 


“Not at all,” said Tryphena, putting down her 
paddle, and rather stiffly offering her hand. 

“I am sorry,” said he, “that circumstances have 
made a visit from me such an unpleasant ordeal.” 

“We can’t help that,” said Tryphena. 

“ But I thought, in view of the fact— that a certain 
person has been allowed to get safely away ” 

“Allowed!” gasped Tryphena. 

“Why, yes. You don’t suppose I didn’t know of 
it. He has been watched for weeks. My agents 
saw him get on the boat.” 

Tryphena began to tremble, and tears caused by 
her agitation sprang to her eyes. 

“I should have thought, I say,” persisted Lord 
Cloone, “ that in view of that circumstance, you might 
have found it less difficult to speak to me as if I were 
a fellow-Christian.” 

The girl was silent. Her head swam. Astonish- 
ment, incredulity, gratitude, and other feelings that 
she could not analyze filled her heart and her mind. 
At last she said, almost sobbing : 

“ Do you mean that you have — let him off? For- 
given him?” 

“No, I don’t mean that,” said Lord Cloone sharply. 
“Breach of trust is a thing I could never forgive. 
But I am- willing, for the sake of — of others , to let 
him off a million times more easily than he deserves!” 

She came a step nearer, she clasped her hands in- 
voluntarily. She looked, Lord Cloone thought, more 
beautiful, more attractive, in this womanly attitude 
than she had ever looked before. 

“Oh!” It was hardly more than a sob. 


OUR WIDOW. 


333 


“ That is to say,” went on Lord Cloone in a dogged 
tone, “as he has exiled himself, I won’t have him 
brought back and prosecuted. And I will give the 
other members of the firm, your brother and Mr. 
Smee, time to make good their partner’s defalcations. 
That, ” finished he in a less decided tone, “ is what 
I came to say, Miss Frewen. And I think you must 
admit that I haven’t been so very brutal after all.” 

Tryphena’s fresh young face beamed with gratitude, 
with delight. 

“Brutal!” echoed she. “ You have acted magnifi- 
cently, nobly. I don’t know what to say to you; I 
really don’t.” 

“ Say one of those pretty things you used to say 
to — Mr. Brown.” 

Tryphena started. Mr. Brown had got lost sight 
of lately, in the new and terrible discovery of Lord 
Cloone. She grew suddenly shy. 

“I thought that I’d atoned for all my misdeeds!” 
exclaimed Lord Cloone ruefully. 

“Oh, you have, but — not for Mr. Brown’s!” 

“ Why, what harm did he ever do?” 

“He got me laughed at, and chaffed, dreadfully. 
They told me,” dashed on Tryphena with her usual 
headlong rashness, “that I’d fallen in love with a 
detective!” 

A great and instant change in both followed these 
words. For while the girl realized the awful admis- 
sion she had made, and was dumb with discomfiture, 
Lord Cloone took instant advantage of the indiscreet 
remark, and came a step nearer, and laughed at her. 

“Fallen in love! Did they say that?” 


334 


OUR WIDOW . 


“Yes. To — to annoy me!” said poor Tryphena, 
crimson and ready to cry. 

“It wasn’t true then?” 

“ Of course not. Of course not!” 

“Did they say anything about the detective’s hav- 
ing fallen in love with you?” 

“ N-n-o. Oh, no!” 

“ That’s left for me to say then,” said Lord Cloone. 
“ Sit down here and let me tell you all about it.” 

Tryphena hesitated, but gave way. And Lord 
Cloone, very earnestly, very deliberately, told her 
how hard he had fought against the attraction she had 
for him, and how it had finally conquered him, and 
brought him to Teddington that afternoon to tell her so. 

And when Molly and Bab, who had been up to 
town to announce their respective engagements to 
their Aunt Agatha, came back home, they were sur- 
prised to find that the terrible man who was to bring 
about the ruin of the family, the monster whose nod 
could bring the firm to the ground, was sitting in the 
drawing-room with Tryphena, and calling that young 
woman by her Christian name. 

Bab saw the situation at a glance. The childish 
younger sister, the tomboy, the girl who never could 
be induced to stand still and have her dresses made 
to fit her, was going to cut them all out, to make a 
great match, to be Lady Cloone. 

Tryphena hardly realized this yet, happy child that 
she was. The thought that, next to the escape of 
her father, was giving joy to her affectionate heart, 
was that now Edgar could marry her darling Mrs. 
Weir, and be one of the family. 


OUR WIDOW ; 


335 


“Just think of it,” said she to Molly, who had been 
showing her a photograph of Sam with the remark 
that it wasn’t half nice enough; “she won’t be our 
widow any longer, Molly. She’ll be our sister, our 
own sister!” 

“And we’ll get them to marry very soon,” sug- 
gested Lord Cloone. “ It will do for a rehearsal for 
— for the rest of us!” 

Then there was a knock at the door, and a silence 
fell upon them till Sam came in. 

And the talk grew very low and very intermittent 
in the room. 

There were bright dreams of happy days in store 
in all their hearts, dreams of the love which was to 
sweeten and make bright their whole lives. 


THE END. 



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